This one looks promising.

It seems like you can always look forward to at least one top-grade thriller from France every year. Last year brought us The Page Turner. Lemming opened in the U.S. the year before that. Cache I think would qualify for 2005, Red Lights for 2004, Read My Lips for 2003, With a Friend Like Harry for 2001, etc.

I think the French have really taken up the mantle of Hitchcock since the Master's passing, and I hope Lelouch is following in that tradition with Roman de gare.

This New York Times article talks about how he fooled the Cannes folks into thinking the film was really the work of another, younger director! Apparently Lelouch's work has fallen out of fashion, although I don't remember receiving that memo.

It's been a while, but I seem to remember this had negative buzz in Palm Springs. Only showed once, though, so it was a very hard to get ticket.

Tell No One is the French Hitchcockian film for you, but I don't know what year it played there.

Having seen this, I'm not sure I'd call it Hitchcockian -- didn't quite rate that level of suspense. There are two distinct halves, one where you wonder if you know who anybody is, the second a bit of l=playing around with stuff that Hitchcock would have liked, but done better. Enjoyable, but the second half, you pretty much knew what the twist would be.

No, not Hitchcockian, but assuredly Lelouchian in its free-form juggling of thriller, comic, and romantic elements. And what an enjoyable performance by Pinon seizing the opportunity to play leading man. He's great. So are Dana and Ardant, for that matter.

And guess what? Tell No One has a U.S. release date. It opens in L.A. on the Fourth of July!

Hmm. I wonder if I can remember enough to put a review together.

Let me know if you want to see it again, Darrel. It's playing Pasadena, Encino, and West Hollywood.