Previous reviewers have poured scorn on a plot they find threadbare, disjointed, and derivative. One is even upset because it seems insouciant about the geography of London, as if works of imagination have to conform explicitly to street plans.
Coming from a cinephile nation, the film's mismash of works like "Notorious", "Vertigo", "Blow-Up", and "Frantic" offers us a cheerful reuse of plot elements from iconic directors of the past in deliberate homage. Like so much of French art, it is not really concerned with plot mechanics but with people, with characters and how they interact.
Watch it for the things like the hesitations as people are unsure how others will react, the statements that the speaker cannot wholly believe or expect the hearer to wholly accept, the ever-varying play of emotions between a man and a woman who are attracted to each other. Enjoy the parallels beween the multiple deceits of spying and those of love.
Coming from a cinephile nation, the film's mismash of works like "Notorious", "Vertigo", "Blow-Up", and "Frantic" offers us a cheerful reuse of plot elements from iconic directors of the past in deliberate homage. Like so much of French art, it is not really concerned with plot mechanics but with people, with characters and how they interact.
Watch it for the things like the hesitations as people are unsure how others will react, the statements that the speaker cannot wholly believe or expect the hearer to wholly accept, the ever-varying play of emotions between a man and a woman who are attracted to each other. Enjoy the parallels beween the multiple deceits of spying and those of love.