DOMINIK MOLL
Bil’s rating (out of 5): BB.5.
Original title: Harry, Un Ami Qui Vous Veut Du Bien
Alternate title: Harry, He’s Here To Help
France, 2000. Canal+, Centre National de la Cinématographie, , , Procirep, Sofica Sofinergie 5. Scenario by Dominik Moll, Gilles Marchand. Cinematography by Matthieu Poirot-Delpech. Produced by Michel Saint-Jean. Music by David Whitaker. Production Design by Michel Barthelemy. Costume Design by Virginie Montel. Film Editing by Yannick Kergoat. Cannes Film Festival 2000. Online Film Critics Awards 2001. Phoenix Film Critics Awards 2001. Toronto International Film Festival 2000.
I’ll be a friend and tell you not to bother. This film descends upon you with a very slow, but never careful or deliberate, pace, featuring characters that are obvious from the beginning and rarely reveal anything significant about themselves. Laurent Lucas plays an average guy with a beautiful wife (Mathilde Seigner) and three bratty daughters who runs into an old high school chum (Sergi López) in a public bathroom at a rest stop on his way to the cottage. The old friend, now a rich bachelor with nothing to do but burn time with his pretty fiancee, invites himself over to Lucas’ home and quietly works his way into their life. He never gets particularly obsessed or frightening, he just starts killing people halfway through the film, and until the very end no one is ever wise to his activities, nor do they find him very unsettling or frightening, just a little annoying because he keeps buying them things.
