Summary

A beautiful Parisian woman opens the wrong door and steps into a dizzying psychological mystery that will forever change two lives in Patrice Leconte’s Intimate Strangers (Confidences Trop Intimes). Leconte’s 20th feature film -- the follow-up to his acclaimed Man on The Train -- is a provocative love story masked in the guise of a suspense thriller. It all begins when the troubled Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) makes a mistake on her way to visit a psychiatrist. Accidentally choosing the wrong office, she is greeted by William Faber (Fabrice Luchini) who, unbeknownst to Anna, is actually a mild-mannered tax accountant. Anna explains that she has arrived in a state of personal emergency, and, before William can protest, begins to expose the most intimate details of her marriage and sex life. Startled and secretly riveted, William does not have the heart to tell this distraught woman his true identity. Playing along with her misconception, he accepts another appointment as her therapist. On her second visit, William tries his best to level with Anna, but gets nowhere. Desperate to undo his error, William even attempts to hunt Anna down, asking his neighbor, the psychiatrist she was supposed to see -- Dr. Monnier (Michel Duchaussoy) -- for her phone number, which only leads to William momentarily becoming a patient of the endlessly philosophical doctor. Disappearing into thin air, Anna becomes William’s obsession. Then comes a third visit in which Anna, aware now of who William is, angrily confronts him with his ruse, accusing him of violating her trust and very being. And yet . . . she returns again. Soon, Anna and William have resumed their weekly appointments in spite of everything. Neither can resist going forward with this most unusual, and seemingly fated, form of “therapy.” William is moved and drawn out of his shell by hearing Anna’s strange, juicy marital secrets -- feeling he is at last privy to the things men almost never hear. Meanwhile, the more Anna talks, the more her anxiety begins to lift -- as she realizes she has met a man who can listen like no one else she has ever encountered. Yet when their sessions probe deeper, William becomes suspicious. Who is this woman who speaks of crippling accidents and controlling husbands? Is she in danger? Is she dangerous? Is she lying? William’s own motivations are equally suspect. Does he think he can rescue Anna? Is he simply getting a voyeuristic thrill from her? Or is he on the verge of falling perilously in love? In a winding game of psychological cat-and-mouse, Anna and William chase each other into places neither one ever expected -- and form a bond of trust that will change one another, encounter by encounter, into new people.