WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY (HARRY, UN AMI QUI VOUS VEUT DU BIEN)
Michel (Laurent Lucas, "Pola X") doesn't realize that he's slowly sinking under the weight of his responsibilities. On the road to a vacation home, which itself is a major renovation burden, with his stressed wife and three small girls, Michel pulls into a rest stop for some relief from the heat. In the washroom, Michel is approached by Harry, (Sergi Lopez, "An Affair of Love") an old schoolmate he hasn't seen in twenty years and barely remembers. The next thing Michel knows, Harry and his girlfriend Plum (Sophie Guillemin, "L'Ennui") are joining his vacation in Writer/Director Dominik Moll's "With a Friend Like Harry."
While Michel is struggling, Harry lives the enviable good life of a man of inheritted wealth, yet Harry immediately exhibits an almost obsessive regard for Michel. Harry shocks Michel by reciting a long poem, "The Dagger in the Skin of Night," which Michel had published in the school paper two decades earlier. Plum even pipes in that Harry has often recited it to her. Michel's wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner, "Venus Beauty Institute") is both wary of Harry and intrigued by this unknown aspect of her mate while we, the audience, begin to wonder just how random Harry's appearance in that rest stop really was.
As if Harry's invasion weren't enough, Michel is annoyed to discover that his meddling parents have taken it upon themselves to remodel the old farmhouse's bathroom in a garish, womblike pink. Harry observes this, then the breakdown of the old family car, and begins to help. His first gesture is shocking enough - he buys a new 4 wheel drive SUV for Michel. Then his actions begin to get a lot more personal.
Moll seems to be going for claustrophobic Hitchcockian suspense, even choosing the only male name ever to appear in a Hitchcock film for his own, yet "With a Friend Like Harry" feels a lot like George Sluizer's 1988 Spoorloos ("The Vanishing), another film that features a fateful rest stop, an old farmhouse and earthy excavations. Moll knows how to build tension, apparent at the onset with that nightmarish family car trip, yet ultimately is unable to sustain it. The ambiguity surrounding Harry's persona and motivations lets the air out of the film's climax.
Still, the film has more going for it than not. Art Director Michel Barthelemy gets just the right level of fixer-upperness for the beautifully set vacation home to see the fanciful possibilities before reality sets in. Director of Photography Matthieu Poirot-Delpech is able to capture that house, the roads to it, and even Michel himself in lights both flattering and sinister. Sound Engineer Francois Maurel has done an expert job capturing ominous rumblings, nightmarish whirrings and staccato shrieks while original music by David Sinclair Whittaker provides effective (if a bit obvious) flourishes to the visuals.
"With a Friend Like Harry" (the original English title was "Harry, He's Here to Help") was nominated for 9 Cesars (the French Oscar), winning Best Director and Best Actor. While I appreciate Lopez' performance, I found Lucas to have the more difficult job - one which he navigates adroitly. Seigner fleshes out complexities for Claire while Guillemin makes a simple character positively endearing. Moll has proved he can create mood and work with actors, yet his storytelling, while psychologically detailed on many levels, doesn't fully satisfy yet, with this, his second film. I for one am looking forward to his third.
B
For more Reeling reviews visit www.reelingreviews.com
laura@reelingreviews.com robin@reelingreviews.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 28727 X-RT-AuthorID: 1487 X-RT-TitleID: 1104269 X-RT-RatingText: B
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews