The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

This unpleasant little movie is partly redeemed by the beautiful Sandrine Bonnaire, but not by her character. What we have here is a story about a voyeur who regularly spies on a young woman across the street (Bonnaire). The young woman lives her life behind a generously sized window in full view of the voyeur (Michel Blanc). She never bothers to pull down a shade. She dresses and undresses in full view. She entertains her lover in full view (though they seem to have sex in another room. The voyeur improbably falls in love with her and she improbably contacts him soon after she discovers in a lightning storm that she's being watched by a man in the apartment building across the street. He's a completely unsympathetic character. I did not feel the slightest impulse to feel sorry for him. The behavior of the young woman is, in my mind, incomprehensible. Although "explained" at the very end by an unexpected plot twist which I will refrain from describing, her behavior apparently depends on her belief that he knows things about her and her lover that simply could not be divined through a curtain-less window. Movie-goers are accustomed to plots that are overly dependent on coincidence, and perhaps there are viewers who willingly suspend disbelief in films that rely on motives that are beyond flimsy. I can live with the former (for example, in movies based on the writings of Charles Dickens, which are packed with coincidence), but I have no tolerance for films that rely on plot elements that are totally unconvincing A romance between the all-knowing and unattractive voyeur and the much younger, beautiful, spied-upon victim? C'mon.

Almost, but not quite a parody of a French intellectual's 'thriller' chess game. Spoiler: It's more like a checkers game. Quirk, more quirks and even more quirks get piled onto Hire but he never becomes a believable character. Same may be said of Alice. (I know Beauty Is In The Eyes of The Beholder but would those of you who find Bonnaire beautiful look twice at her at a party or in a bar?) But let me list the movie's Mount Everest-high story problems, the real issue here. 1.We're shown Hire's large modern apartment building but we have to forget that there are a couple dozen other apartments whose residents are also able to view Alice, Alice and Emile in flagrante delicto. Perhaps one of them might have seen the murder take place? 2.Try taking your girlfriend or wife to a well intended sporting event.....and then place your hand on her labia......No one sees this? No one has peripheral vision? 3.Yet another fictional police inspector who is allowed to spend much of his days, morning, afternoon and evening, unsupervised and able to follow poor Hire around? Police harassment anyone? 4.Emile is moron enough to keep his murder victim's purse and his own blood-dried raincoat in Alice's apartment? 5. Hire writes a letter to the inspector naming Emile as the murderer and tells him where the raincoat can be located; how could Hire possibly know this? But no matter, when he buys the two tickets to Lausanne he's already burned his bridges re Alice because he's turned in her lover. So when she fails to show up to leave Paris with him he already knows he's lost the game. Why wouldn't, no, why shouldn't he turn her in when she double screws him by claiming he's the murderer? And then the most preposterous part of the story takes place. This man, who we've seen as someone with a flaring temper, RUNS AWAY OVER THE ROOFTOPS. Why in the world would he do this other than to give the hack screenwriter a 'dramatic', or rather, a melodramatic ending? Finally, obsessions such as those afflicting Hire and Alice would be more easily disposed of by showing how banal the object of the obsessed person is when seeing the object of their obsession close up. How satisfying the ending would have been to show Hire dispassionately denouncing her and proving it by telling the inspector where the raincoat was and also telling him about the explanatory letter. Final images: Emile and Alice in prison and Hire dolefully and dutifully looking at the window of the next woman who moves into Alice's apartment.

Lonely, middle-aged tailor Monsieur Hire (Michel Blanc) compulsively peeps out his apartment window into the apartment of the pretty blonde Alice (Sandrine Bonnaire) across the way. She finds out and seems to find it a little exciting. But this opening doesn't give a clue where this spellbinding story of passion and betrayal is headed.Meanwhile, someone has murdered a young girl and dumped her body in the park near where Hire lives. The detective has his eye on Hire, perhaps because Hire is considered a weirdo in the neighborhood. He doesn't like other people and they don't like him (except, oddly, at the bowling alley).The story centers around the emerging relationship between Hire and Alice as they meet and get to know each other. Complicating things is the fact that she is engaged to be married to someone else. The motives behind their words and actions are not clear at first and even seem contradictory.Plot points are doled out slowly at first and the early part of the film requires patience. But towards the end, as a clear picture emerges of what is actually happening, the movie builds to a nail-biting conclusion and as intensely emotional a finish as I've ever seen.The final slow-motion coda put a lump in my throat. If you care about stories of profound love, you should see this.

Patrice Leconte's talents as a comedic filmmaker are no doubt renowned but he takes the dramatic, tragic reins on Georges Simenon's brilliant story "Monsieur Hire", a decidedly different approach to "Panique" which handled the same subject matter with the same characters. This involves sinister trappings of the utmost order.A murder of a young girl in his neighbourhood sparks off rumours. Hire's neighbours talk while the inspector listens. Very often he claims, the one that seems guilty, is guilty. Monsieur Hire is not remotely intimidated; he rightly attributes their suspicions to his seemingly misanthropic persona. Living alone, he dresses in the same suit each day, goes to work while strictly keeping his greetings formal and uninformative, and comes home to a simple, inelegant dinner of a hard-boiled egg. You see, Monsieur Hire is not a hermit; he does not suffer from agoraphobia nor does he fear people. It's a lifestyle that he's taken up, due to mistrust of others, even perhaps a snobbish contempt of others. As per the inspector's investigations, he finds Hire bowling rather flamboyantly, entertaining the rest of the bowlers. He's their king. But when returning home, he is ridiculed by the children (he stays annoyed but does not grow scornful of them). One can still detect that he's more open to them than the adults.The murder mystery takes a backseat to Hire. It's a taut, compelling character study that flows beautifully. It's structured so well and acted on so marvelously by Michel Blanc (who helmed "The Escort", my next rental) who effuses such a subtle, sad anger that defeats the man Hire obviously wants to be. And subtly is something "Monsieur Hire" does brilliantly when he's allowed to see, but not touch and allowed to touch but never feel. There's so much to be said for composing shots that hide behind exteriors, afraid to discover the intricacies of their maiden relationship. Leconte observes on the level of Hire. He photographs and captures a scene in its absoluteness, lingering just long enough for us to absorb its significance but switches it fast enough for us to want to know more.Hire has a rather unsettling past-time involving the woman who lives across from him, a floor below. Like clockwork each day, he looks and sees everything she does, as though entranced with her life. She does notice him one day, shocked initially but then becomes interested in him. He does not want to admit that he's finding her company pleasant. Complicating their relationship is her boyfriend, oblivious to Hire but obviously no less painful for Hire to see. It's such a sensual affair; poignant as anything you could hope to see. Look for the scene on the bus that encapsulates their relationship in a glance. My only regret is that we don't learn more about Monsieur Hire before the film rolls to a close, but I believe we would have learnt more than we should about such a man.