All of the so-called "tension" felt false and contrived, due to the stupidity of the lead character. Every move he made from beginning to end was extremely dumb.
What a shame because the movie had so much potential. But lazy writing to get from point A to point B always destroys the story and audiences trust.
I don't agree with that. Sitting here with a glass of wine, stress free watching the film, its easy rationalize decisions of others as smart or dumb, but the reality if life us we all make dumb decisions sometimes, under stress or in a hurry. Not much more stressful than accidentally killing a bloke. Once the first step is taken, consequences follow and more 'dumb' choices can be made.
Wouldn't film be dull if it was all about people making clinically rational choices at all times, rather than messing up at times, just like in the real world. I too was sitting there saying 'Don't do that like that!' but can happily buy into it as it was. The scriptwriters did a perfectly decent job.
I agree with the OP.
Were we supposed to like this guy? I kept hoping he would get caught. The only time he seemed happy was with Hugo. Guess what? Your wife is divorcing you so you can start your life over...while visiting your children.
No, let's go visit your wife's lover, kill him (accident or not, the initial hitting him with the glass bottle could have yielded the same result), come up with some ridiculous plan to take his identity and fake your own death. Even if we ignore how ridiculous it is that he didn't get caught, the man left his children (who knows what the new stepfather might be like), destroy your father's expensive boat (screw him) and disappoint your dying boss/friend that you were hanging on every previous scene.
I hated this guy. The movie was annoying. I use it to help me learn French.
Marion Cotillard, Keira Knightley and Olga Kurylenko are the most beautiful women on Earth.
Harsh! He didn't want his children to be burdened with the knowledge their father was a murderer, which propelled his desire to go underground. He did what he felt he had to do. His understanding of the law probably informed him that he wouldn't be able to get off from the crime that he actually didn't commit.
He wasn't thinking straight when he went to visit the man who'd been having an affair with his wife. As it goes, that man goaded him and was pretty vile. Yes, hitting him with the bottle was shockingly wrong but he didn't intend to murder him.
I found it refreshing to watch this interesting film where nothing was simple or 'black and white' and the protagonist was complicated and flawed. We're so used to consuming diluted Hollywood mass produced crap that we often sit as passive audience members when watching a film; at least this one demands that you think.
Europeans (many of their movies, at any rate) are slipping back into the paganistic (pre-Judeo-Christian) worldview of fatalistic despair. Classic Greek and Roman (and most other pagan religious philosophies) believed that human progress was almost impossible individually and definitely corporately - as the competing childlike whimsical Gods and Goddesses always stepped in and crushed the human spirit for merely their own emotional purposes.
The protagonist here was caught up in "irrational" chaos in his own life - his wife just suddenly turned cold and unloving and totally uncommunicative for no apparent reason - like a whimsical Pagan Goddess. This upset him enough - after endless sleepless nights and too much alcohol and the really bad lying his wife did - that his own actions were no longer informed by any reasonable judgment.
Confronting Greg was only reasonable as far as learning some more of the truth. Striking him WAS unreasonable and then Greg's "accidental" death brings us back to the fatalistic and "it's all futile" worldview. Then "rational man" reappears as he thinks his way back to a point where "progress" can occur again for himself - then whimsical "Fate" steps in again. Remember, he was ONLY taking pictures again for his own amusement and working on "progress" of his own art. He could have been working out a way to anonymously get them admired more widely - but a happenstance meeting with a drunk editor messed all that up. His life was ALWAYS in the hands of "Fate" and never his alone.
Hey - I have been involved in romantic triangles and had a wife who was unfaithful and I never killed anyone or did anything remotely similarly stupid - like attack someone other than with my controlled hands. And my life steadily - and boringly - progressed pretty well. (Granted - no one has made a movie about it either. 😃 )