I must admit that my jaw dropped after spotting Sophie Marceau in Anthony Zimmer. Her first entrance is simply stunning. Only then I have realized she was basically the sole reason I was watching this movie in the first place. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her on the big screen… Not like she stopped acting, quite the opposite, when you look at her filmography, you’ll see many titles, year after year. The problem is, most of them are of doubtful quality, so I just skipped them. Anthony Zimmer is a single exception since Fidelity (by Andrzej Żuławski), that has caught my interest. I was heading for a big treat and thankfully I wasn’t disappointed.
Anthony Zimmer is not in any way exceptional. You might even go as far as saying it’s just your typical French thriller. And you’ll be mostly right. Mostly, because it is so much more at the same time… First of all it’s not just a thriller, it’s a psychological thriller and there’s a certain distinction between the two. In practice it usually means less shooting and action replaced with more acting and talking. Actually, French cinema is quite good at psychological thrillers, maybe even the best? Red Lights, which comes to my mind, is the closest offspring from that genre – both movies share similar atmosphere and tension.
Second thing, which make Anthony Zimmer exceptional is the perfect cast of three main players. Aforementioned and always exceptionally beautiful Sophie Marceau as Chiara, Yvan Attal as Francois Taillandier and Sami Frey as Akerman, overshadowing the two. We get a glimpse of Daniel Olbrychski too, which was a treat on its own as he is a well known actor in Poland.
The movie starts and the game begins…
I would love to say that Anthony Zimmer left me speechless, but it is not so. Quite the contrary, it gave me a lot to write about.
Rating: 9/10
