Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageAnna M (2007)
Director: Michel Spinosa
Movie review
From Time Out London
Operating in the strange but intriguing territory between the psychotic tendencies of Haneke’s ‘The Piano Teacher’ and the point-at-the-crazy-lady scares of ‘Fatal Attraction’, ‘Anne M’ is a decent Parisian thriller that rides on the tails of a calling-card turn from Isabelle Carré as a lovelorn stalker-cum-social-menace who falls in love with her doctor. Themes of obsession, self-abasement, moral reticence and maternal anguishare all touched on in this slow-burning, attractively photographed, sinister little film. It falls at some hurdles, mainly due to the fact that police and psychiatric staff are never willing to accept Anna as anything more than a pest, allowing for some contrivance. Gilbert Melki is suitably anonymous as the unwitting object of Anna’s affections , but it’s Carré’s on-the-dime transitions from mouse to maniac that supply the film with its intensity.
Author: David Jenkins
Time Out London Issue 1943: November 14-20 2007
User reviews of this film
-
- Technoguy said...
-
Posted on Mar 17 2008 23:40
A casebook study with thriller overtones.Headings like
'Hope','Rejection','Hatred' present stages in the development of the mental illness ,erotomania.Carre effectively plays the transition from shy to reckless very well.Melki,the doctor object of her attention plays anonymous and the detached professional.We feel for his situation without caring for him.Anna lives with her depressed mother and is reclusive and becomes suicidal.She pursues the said doctor misunderstanding his efforts to be honest and tell her he loves his wife.She thinks he's arranging to be near to her when he attempts to brush her off kindly.The tension mounts when she becomes a child minder over his apartment.She is quite cruel,abruptly shaking the children and muffling their cries.She becomes pregnant by a man she casually picks up.I feel despite the strong central performance the film fails to engage due to its overclinical approach and it's failure to flesh out surrounding characters. - Report as inappropriate
Cast & crew
Director: Michel Spinosa
Cast: Isabelle Carré, Gilbert Melki, Anne Consigny, Geneviève Mnich, Eric Savin, Gaelle Bona, Samir Guesmi, Francis Renaud, Pascal Bongard, Francois Loriquet full cast
Duration: 107 mins
UK Release: Nov 16 2007
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Martin Provost discusses 'Séraphine'
Trevor Johnston talks to the director of 'Séraphine' about bringing a little known French painter back to life
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Stephen Poliakoff discusses 'Glorious 39'
Stephen Poliakoff’s ‘Glorious 39’ is his first film for cinema since ‘Food of Love’ in 1997. Dave Calhoun met him
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
Steven Soderbergh on 'The Informant!' and 'The Girlfriend Experience'
We talk to Steven Soderbergh about his two forthcoming films: one featuring a porn star, the other a chubby Matt Damon
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now