Nobody Else But You (8/10)

by Tony Medley

Run time 102 minutes

Not for children.

If you want to see a good film that doesn't rely on childish superheroes or mind-numbing special effects, it's best to look elsewhere than American films. If you want a good script, a well-told story, and good acting, foreign films are your best bet. You get to see fine, well-written and directed little films like this one that starts out as a mystery and turns into a thought-provoking roman à  clef. People often avoid foreign films because of the subtitles, but I'd much rather read subtitles of a good film than sit through over two hours of special effects and superheroes who can't die in films almost devoid of plot and character development.

David Rousseau (Jean-Paul Rouve) is a blocked thriller writer who finds himself in the small French town of Mouthe, the coldest  village in France, on a "no man's land" near the Swiss border. There he comes across the death of a gorgeous blonde celebrity, Candice Lecoeur (Sophie Quinton), which is called a suicide. But that doesn't make sense to David, who embarks on research into her death to write a book about it. As he tries to dig into it, he's met with puzzling stubborn resistance from the local gendarme.

Writer/Director Gérald Hustache-Mathieu does a masterful job in creating this interesting mystery getting wonderful performances from Rouve and Quinton. The wintertime cinematography (Pierre Cottereau) adds a lot to the film.

June 2, 2012