Review of Tell No One (2006) by Ericl. — 14 Sep 2008
Watching or reading a Good Mystery should be like watching a Good Magician: you know you are being cleverly misled and relish the challenge of seeing through various feints and slight of hand to put the puzzle together.
But mysteries only delight us when we know that we were given a fair chance--i.e. that the clues were there all along, but we were fooled despite our best efforts. Tell No One never gives the audience a chance: its like hearing a 7 yr old tell a story and realizing midway through she's been making it up off the top of her head (and has now lost the pt entirely).
While the film's opening is terrific, once Canet force feeds Jeff Buckley's otherwise gorgeous "Lilac Tree" (at twice the film's normal volume), any discerning viewer will began to suspect a fraud.
It goes downhill from there. I'm honestly shocked at how easily duped most critics (and apparently some viewers) are: the script isn't complex; it is incoherent. And with the exception of a few chases, the editing is merely confusing; not beguiling.
A last pt: the film shows how easy it is to get good reviews simply by flattering the political and aesthetic sensibilities of film critics. Perhaps the most annoying thing about Tell No One is its smug and lazy liberalism (I say this as a life-long liberal).
No wait: even more annoying is its preening, self indulgent and entirely uninspired musical score. You get the feeling Canet spent more time figuring out which songs from his 1990's mix tape to use than figuring out how to convey a fairly complex mystery novel in the space of two hours.
This review of Tell No One (2006) was written by Ericl. on 14 Sep 2008.
Tell No One has generally received very positive reviews.
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