Number 753 on the top 1000 films of all time is the 2006 French adaptation of Harlan Coben's thriller of the same name.
Dr Alexandre Beck (Francois Cluzet) is a paediatrician in Paris who is slowly recovering from the murder of his wife eight years prior. However, when he discovers that his wife might actually be alive, he is hurtled into a dangerous and mysterious world.
This is the second adaptation of Harlan Coben's work that I have seen after Netflix's Safe. The two both have a doctor protagonist investigating the disappearance of a loved on. Both adaptations are incredibly complicated I wonder if it's fair to describe Coben as one of those crime writers who's too clever for their own good.
Don't get me wrong - I did enjoy Ne le dis a personne, as much as I understood it. And I'm not just talking about the fast-spoken French, but the complicated plot line that often took precedence over the characters especially the female characters.
Beck has a number of different women in his life from his sister to his sister-in-law to his lawyer, but they all blended into one with no distinguishable features. I also found it unlikely that a middle-class doctor like Beck would have an unexpected friend/ally in the local gangster Bruno who feels indebted to Beck after he treated his haemophiliac son. Whenever Beck is in trouble Bruno is the deux ex machina come to save the day. Honour among thieves, I guess?
I think I just about understood everything by the end of this fast-paced crime thriller. Perhaps convoluted, overly-complicated plots is just the nature of the genre and I best get used to it.
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