R E V I E W S

With A Friend Like Harry (2001)

Starring: Laurent Lucas, Sergi Lopez, Laurie Caminata, Sophie Guillemin
Director: Dominik Moll
Rating: R

Studio: Miramax

Review Posted: 5.11.01

Rating: 3.5/4

By Sara M. Fetters.

"A Masterful Thriller"

Michel (Laurent Lucas), tired and in his late thirties, is traveling into the French countryside with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner) and three daughters to their vacation home. The old car sputters and clunks down the highway, the heat unbearable as the youngest child screams her disapproval while another kicks the driver’s seat in boredom. The house is a dilapidated mess in need of numerous repairs, save for a bright pink modern new bathroom secretly updated by Michel’s prying parents. Topping it off, the constant barrage of everyday adult life is starting to put a strain on his marriage.

It’s sounds like your typical Lifetime “women’s” movie – a study of a marriage in danger of falling apart – but then we haven’t talked about Harry.

Harry (Sergi López) is a former classmate of Michel’s. After a chance meeting – or is it? – at a rest stop, he quickly reacquaints himself with an at-a-loss Michel and invites himself and his fiancé Plum (Sophie Guillemin) over to their home to catch up. Once there, Harry ingratiates himself with the family by recalling Michel’s high school poetry and writing (one deals with a naked sword that only comes out at night – you figure it out). The next day, being independently wealthy he offers to replace the couple’s 
dilapidated car with a brand new shiny red 4x4. Other attempts at largesse soon follow. But through all this generosity, both Michel and Claire remain uneasy with their new benefactor.

As they should be, for in classic Hitchcock fashion, Harry is not what he seams. His perverse fascination with Michel’s writing and his lust to see that it resumes escalates a raw rage that becomes increasingly dangerous to those dear to Michel. Soon, Michel’s disillusionment at his own humdrum 
existence pales in comparison to his rising terror towards his long lost friend.

With a Friend Like Harry director/co-writer Dominik Moll (Intimité) has fashioned a near-perfect claustrophobic suspense thriller. Using bits and pieces of Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt and the Trouble With Harry and 
mixing with a twist of the works of fellow French suspense master Claude Chabrol (L’enfer, La Cérémonie), Moll’s sophomore effort bristles with wit, humor, suspense and tragedy. Seductively shot, scored and edited, With A 
Friend Like Harry works on nearly every level.

Impressively acted by the four leads, with both Mathilde Seigner and Sophie Guillemin doing a great deal with what are essentially one-dimensional roles, the movie is a real treat. If there are any flaws it is only that we have been down this road before. But even then, each twist and turn in the film’s many layers are not so much original as they are handled skillfully by a master craftsman. Next to Memento, With a Friend Like Harry is the best thriller of the year.

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