2 January 2020

Philippe Haïm's Barracuda (1997)

A rather spooky film with Monsieur Clément (Jean Rochefort) as the lonely and deranged apartment dweller who invites new resident Luc (Guillaume Canet) to dinner with him while Luc's pregnant wife Margot (Claire Keim) is away for a few days. Clément's walls are padded and lined with photos of Fred Astaire. Even worse, there's a slightly Psycho-like element: Clément's wife is dead and a model of her is at the dinner table. Unsurprisingly, Luc makes a getaway but is knocked out by Clément.

As difficult as it is to believe, the elderly Clément manages to keep the young Luc in his apartment for nine months, telling him that he's killed Margot. But when Luc sees Margot pleading for information on TV he breaks free and kills Clément. Rochefort is of course brilliant, but this is not even the best film I've seen so far this year (and it's only a day old). This is not Misery.

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