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A woman in high-heeled shoes walks down the street, then into a crisp interior corridor. Cut to a fuzzy image — a conversation of tired familiar clichés fills the screen. Oh, it is an image from a daytime television show — a soap opera. Here we have the initial juxtaposition of Patrice Leconte's new film: a thriller, a soap opera, or just unsettled states of affairs. Anna (Sandrine Bonnaire) is planning for a first appointment with a psychoanalyst. However, she emerges from the elevator and by mistake enters the office of William, a tax analyst (Fabrice Luchini). The icons of psychotherapy are there: the analytic couch, a professional journal on the desk, and, of course, the reserved and pensive William. Anna immediately launches into her story of marital problems, her husband's loss of desire for her. William, who is used to the personal confession leading ultimately to a discussion of divorce and tax implications, listens carefully. But when he realizes that she has mistaken him for the psychoanalyst down the hall, he hesitates and within seconds agrees to a second “session” with this woman. Thus begins their relationship. Is it that of analyst and patient? Is it the meeting of two unseen people who can ease their loneliness in the company of the other? Is it a love affair of words, silences, and cigarettes? Is it a relationship built on false pretense, one that will momentarily explode into a film noir murder?
The films of Patrice Leconte often invite us into a world where characters seem to randomly come together, link with some unfulfilled aspect of the other, and create new emotional permutations. In this new production, the film itself keeps changing genres: from a comedy, to drama, to thriller, and back again. The storytelling devices increasingly unsettle us as viewers. The