(Ne Le Dis À Personne, 2006) The world of grown-ups, those not beleaguered by the pressures of fate-versus-choice in life-challenging, life-affirming journeys of superheroic stature, has almost vanished in U.S. movies. Lives that have been lived a little are relegated to cable, it seems, with David Simon’s “The Wire” being the most notable example of adult stuff that once would have been part of the challenging fare on movie screens. Guillaume Canet’s haunting chiller “Tell No One,” based on a novel by American writer Harlan Coben, is a whip-smart, neck-snapping thriller where the faces of actors like Francois Cluzet (with expressive features strikingly like Dustin Hoffman’s), as Alex, a pediatrician whose wife (Marie-Josee Croze) was murdered eight years earlier, and Kristin Scott-Thomas (in fluent French), as his closest confidant, look like real people: or at least like fine, fine-featured actors who bear age with grace and whose characters are plausibly challenged by the heightening obstacles of the canny plotting. He’s almost put his life together when hints come, from the police and via successive emails, that all is not resolved. A remarkable thriller the virtues of which include terrific foot-chase, “Tell No One” is jam-packed with surprise and satisfying frissons, and its look into dark nights of the soul are easily the equal of those in the newest Batman saga, and it moves with the verve of a 1970s thriller like “Marathon Man.” More, please. 125m. Anamorphic 2.40 widescreen. (Ray Pride)
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