Dominik Moll
Harry, un amico vero

In the green heart of France, just below Paris, Claire and Michel, a young couple, are preparing to spend a few weeks of vacation in the country house with their three little girls. However, they are hot in that old car without air conditioning, and they cry. So the woman and the man argue. There's also the prospect of his parents visiting, bringing gifts, perhaps to better keep an eye on them. Moreover, Claire is overly appreciated by her father-in-law, yet cordially hated by her mother-in-law.

At the highway rest stop, during a break, Michel sees an old school friend, Harry, after twenty years. The only thing that unites them in their memories is an epic fistfight. Harry is an admirer of his old companion; in fact, he's obsessed with his missed achievements. He knows by heart an old poem of his, knows everything about an old draft of a novel... Rich by inheritance, with a totally submissive wife, he begins to solve his problems in his own way: that is, progressively isolating him so he can start writing again. I will say no more.

I will only say that the film, despite some derailment at the end, is well-conceived and never trivial, evidently the result of the happy inspiration of its author, the German naturalized French Dominik Moll, who later achieved greater fame with "The Monk," and the work of a well-directed cast. It is worth watching, being not only at the end of the path marked by the unsurpassable "Shining," the good "Misery" (1990, by Rob Reiner, based on Stephen King) and the splendid, crepuscular "Felicia's Journey" by Atom Egoyan (1999), but also at their convergence: the disturbing composure of the psychotic in fact at the center of the story, here interpreted by the Spaniard Sergi López i Ayats, awarded at the César 2001 and the European Film Awards as Best Actor for this performance, will remind you of Joe Hilditch embodied by Bob Hoskins (a certainly more complex character); when you see the roads cutting through the sumptuous forests of France crossed by tiny cars as in a suspended climate's labyrinth, and when you see the specter of family life's degeneration, there you'll find "Shining"; observing Henry's care for Michel, you'll see the madness of the nurse in "Misery" towards her idol writer; and in those desolate scenarios, where slashes of light and bursts of terror pierce the quiet of the countryside, you'll hear again the terrible voice of the subconscious.

Then the last image will clarify much of what you thought you hadn't fully understood, the real meaning of the story, or at least of its second part.

At the 2001 César Awards, the film won the awards for Best Director, Best Sound, Best Editing, and, as previously mentioned, Best Actor.