Anna M

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 anguish
are 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.