Trying to pay his bills, a struggling painter teaches drawing to children. He is convinced that his handsome wife is growing too close to a local celebrity, to wit a writer/reporter with a luxuriant sense of self-worth. Sadly enough he soon finds himself looking at an even worse problem, since one of his young pupils gets murdered under particularly vile circumstances. While the rest of the town looks on, the struggling painter becomes suspect number one...
A clever psychological thriller with a number of cunning twists, clues and red herrings, "Au coeur" invites the viewer to ponder at least two questions : not only "who actually raped and killed a child ?" but also "who has the kind of mindset that would allow him to rape and kill a child ?" Be prepared for a cunning game of appearances, illusions and make-belief... It's not for nothing that the idea of "trompe l'oeil" painting keeps recurring.
There is also a vein of dark satire running through the movie. For instance, the author/reporter mentioned above turns out to be a particularly unpleasant creature, fully capable of inviting himself to dinner, filling his belly with a generous meal of lobster of wine, and then insulting his hosts. His literary talent, on the other hand, seems limited, as does his capacity for separating fact from fiction. Behind this one celebrity one can guess at a whole twinkling galaxy of pseudo-stars, who shine not thanks to their gifts but thanks to their emptiness, cheapness and nastiness.
I rather liked the character of the female police inspector, a seemingly shy and boring creature with the resolve and bite of an anaconda...
Still, there seems to be something that keeps "Au coeur" back from turning into a really great movie. I'd describe it as a good, interesting, watchable thriller, but not a work of genius...
A clever psychological thriller with a number of cunning twists, clues and red herrings, "Au coeur" invites the viewer to ponder at least two questions : not only "who actually raped and killed a child ?" but also "who has the kind of mindset that would allow him to rape and kill a child ?" Be prepared for a cunning game of appearances, illusions and make-belief... It's not for nothing that the idea of "trompe l'oeil" painting keeps recurring.
There is also a vein of dark satire running through the movie. For instance, the author/reporter mentioned above turns out to be a particularly unpleasant creature, fully capable of inviting himself to dinner, filling his belly with a generous meal of lobster of wine, and then insulting his hosts. His literary talent, on the other hand, seems limited, as does his capacity for separating fact from fiction. Behind this one celebrity one can guess at a whole twinkling galaxy of pseudo-stars, who shine not thanks to their gifts but thanks to their emptiness, cheapness and nastiness.
I rather liked the character of the female police inspector, a seemingly shy and boring creature with the resolve and bite of an anaconda...
Still, there seems to be something that keeps "Au coeur" back from turning into a really great movie. I'd describe it as a good, interesting, watchable thriller, but not a work of genius...