At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A French thriller. The wife, Lisa, of a school teacher, Julian, is convicted of murder after being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their previously quiet, steady life is thrown into turmoil. She is sentenced to 20 years in prison.As well as witnessing the couple's commitment to each other, we see the effect the events have on her son. Her husband bides his time and plans in detail how to free her from prison. His escape plans succeed and they flee to live abroad.A well paced, crafted thriller, that builds suspense and engages us with the characters.

A stylish , complex movie driven by character , dealing with a high school teacher with no legal means left to him , as he devises a daring plan to rescue his wrongfully imprisoned wife from jail . Based on the original idea by Guillaume Lemans , this is a perfect thriller being starred by an all-star-cast as the French Vincent Lindon and German Diane Kruger . Being remade in American version (2010) by Paul Haggis with Russell Crowe and Elizabeth Banks . A teacher named Julien (Vincent Lindon , in American version played by Russell Crowe), is happily married to his sweetheart wife , Lisa (Diane Kruger , she spent several months developing the character which had a significantly smaller role in the original draft). When her despised chief is murdered, she is the main suspect . Then , a clear evidence convicts Lara Brennan of killing . Lisa is sentenced to 20 years of jail for murder charges. While she's in prison , her husband cares for their young son and plots a twisted plan , as he decides to break her out. Julien consults a successful escape artist turned author, and he starts planning and decides to carry out his scheme . He'll need to disrupt jail routine, obtain IDs and passports, know how to escape a dragnet, find a new place to live , and squirrel away cash ; as he spends the next few years trying to get her released . The essential question that lies in the film is the following : How far would you go for the one you love ?This exciting film contains action , violence , thrills , suspense and plot twists . Excellent thriller in which nothing is the way it seems , the atmosphere is already tense and the twists and turns are the best part of this movie . In other ways, it feels like a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, full of attractive characters and edge-of-your-seat intrigue . The film was noteworthy for casting some of the finest actors in France including Vincent Lindon as a husband whose life is turned upside down when his wife is accused of a murder , along with Olivier Marchal , an actor/director who has directed sensational Fench thrillers , just like "36th Precinct" , ¨Mr73¨ as good as this ¨Anything for her¨ . And , of course , a gorgeous as well as good actress Diane Kruger as the woman wrongfully condemned ; in fact ,Fred Cavayé chose Diane Kruger for her radiant beauty, as it would make her character's ordeal all the more powerful .All the prison scenes and the studio interiors were shot in chronological order as Fred Cavayé felt it would be important for the actors and the evolution of their characters. Good production design , the prison seen in the film is actually a combination of three filming locations: the exteriors are that of the Meaux prison, some 40 kilometers east of Paris, the entrance corridors are part of the Bibliothèque Nationale De France in Paris and the other interiors . The picture achieved big success and was Nominated César Best First Film (2009) and considered to be the best thriller of the year in which you'll leave the cinema shaken and moved . Excellent soundtrack by Klaus Badlet , it was recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios that elevate the emotion and the intensity of the scenes to new heights .Fred Cavallé did a formidable job with Pour elle" ,France (original title or "Anything for Her" , International title and filming lasted eleven weeks. Fred was immediately impressed with writer Guillaume Lemans's passion for the story, and his vision, stating that he understood that the novel was a love story first , and a thriller second . The idea for the film came from Guillaume Lemans , once Fred Cavayé got involved, the two men started out by working on the film separately before sharing their ideas , Cavayé then wrote the first draft of the screenplay himself, and so on. Cavallé is a notorious writer/director and he formerly was a fashion and advertising photographer . He has only directed three films "The Players" with Oscar winner Jean Dujardin and another phenomenal thriller titled ¨Point blank ¨ with Gilles Lellouche , Gérard Lanvin and Elena Anaya . Eclectic and moving, Cavallé is a successful filmmaker .

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning Julien (Vincent Lindon) is a french bloke who's about to settle down to have a nice meal with his wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) and son, when the police raid his apartment and arrest Lisa on suspicion of murdering her boss. She's innocent, but too much plausible evidence is stacked against her and she looks set to spend a long time in jail for a crime she didn't commit. With everything going wrong, Julien mounts a plan to spring her from the nick and is driven to desperate lengths to see his plan through.This small, independent film first took me by surprise during the opening credits which had french writing all over them. I had been looking forward to seeing Mesrine which is one of the more well known french films to have come out lately, but this looked like a normal American sort of lesser known film, but then I see it's all in french?!? Anyway, that shouldn't be a major problem and it isn't- and this is a decent thriller with quite a high concept idea behind the storyline which is driven with some solid drama and thrilling gusto. It's a bit too unremarkable to have much of an effect beyond that, but it's nice to know our continental neighbours can carry off their own legs. ***

Julien and Lisa are a happy loving couple living quiet, ordinary lives in their quiet, ordinary apartment with their baby son Oscar. Then one evening the doorbell rings, Julien opens the door and their lives are thrown into chaos. Police swarm into the apartment, pounce on Lisa and arrest her for the murder of her boss. Three years later Lisa has lost her last appeal against her 20 year jail term and is finally giving up hope – and giving up on life. She stops taking insulin trying to slowly commit suicide. Julien is a desperate man. He tracks down a notorious criminal who has written a best-selling book on his several successful escapes from prison. And so his plan begins. 'Anything For her' is a typical solid French thriller. There are no sudden twists or turns in a plot that relies on the natural tension of the situation to keep it going. The meticulous planning of the jail-break is compelling as you watch Julien turn his apartment into effectively an operations room. The walls are lined with maps and photographs, with graphs and plane schedules, and with heavily underlined questions such as "Escape Route?" He tells Lisa nothing about what he's doing and begs her to just hang on. He intends to sell her mother's house to raise the money they'll need to start a new life but then Lisa is told she is to be transferred to another prison and so Julien must speed up his plans and raise the money somewhere else. The tension and the pressure of it on Julien is almost unbearable and never lets up. The director is determined that there be no distraction from this, his main focus of the film and quickly shows, practically at the start, what actually happened to Lisa's boss so that that whole aspect of the story is quickly dismissed and forgotten about. It's not an all-out masterpiece by any means but it is a very entertaining, at times gripping film that does exactly what it says on the tin. Vincent Lindon is practically a veteran of these things and forces you to feel real empathy for Julien while Diane Kruger does well with what is really a much smaller part, fully conveying the nightmare of prison life and the physical decline it brings.