Ne Le Dis A Personne (Tell No One)

There are times when reviewers are stumped over how to convey admiration, or the lack thereof, without giving everything away. This is exponentially more difficult when the film itself explicitly insists you say nothing. And so I have decided to say very little about French director Guillaume Canet's Tell No One. I can tell you this: it takes place approximately eight years after a man has lost his wife in a brutal murder and a new development in the case calls his innocence into question. I can also tell you that you're better off not knowing anything else, as the experience is all the more mesmerizing with just the right amount of ignorance going in. Parlez-vous Francais? Tell No One contains just one extra: an hour-long documentary chronicling the film's making and it is entirely in French. While the film is suitably subtitled, the distributors decided that English-speaking admirers should be happy enough to enjoy the film and stop there. Given the film's strong international success, they could have definitely splurged on a translator. That said, if you do speak French, I'm not sure you're in any better position. The documentary goes absolutely nowhere and serves to showcase the director mostly as a young genius in the making, doing little to enhance the appreciation of the film. Tell No One is tender and tense, playful and sinister. Canet guides you along a journey that is consistently unexpected and yet never gimmicky or contrived. All you have to do is sit on the edge of your couch and wait with horrible impatience to be let in on the secret.