Smartly written, cleverly constructed, and frantically paced, it’s an old school thriller, calling to mind a cool Gallic mix of vintage Hitchcock ( North by Northwest and Vertigo) and a dash of The Fugitive. But where’s the fun in having the film have to hold your hand to get there?Īnd that’s the problem – because for much of its run time, Tell No One is, a lot of fun. Sure, the increasingly bewildering series of confusing actions and narrative non sequiturs actually all fall tidily into place in the end – everything does fit together, any potential plot holes are neatly plugged up. Tell No One opts for the full disclosure route out of a certain formal necessity – thematically and stylistically, it never feels like the type of mystery that would have been well served by retaining any ambiguity in the end.Īnd yet, I can’t help but feel that the very deliberate, step by step, bullet pointed explanation that eats up the last 20-minutes of the film is a bit of a cheat, pointing to the weaknesses of a plot that skimps so much on workable clues that the audience could never hope to untangle it without aid. Whether this flies right with you depends on whether you like your mysteries spelled out with airtight thoroughness, or whether you like them to remain, in the end, um… well, still a bit mysterious. Eventually, Tell No One tells you everything.
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