With a Friend Like Harry... (2000)

I do not understand why this film received the critical acclaim that it did. The references to Hitchcock seem to be a misleading front for the repetition of what is now a dated and unoriginal plot. I can sum it up in a few words: a guy meets an old schoolfriend by chance, the old schoolfriend seems unusually determined to get involved in the guy's life; the old schoolfriend turns out to be a maniac. It's a tired theme that's been repeated many times before, and this film doesn't stand out as doing it any better than others.

The whole basis of a good thriller is that its events are unpredictable. The fundamental problem with "Harry, He's Here To Help" is that it fails on this count. When well done, thrillers can provide hugely entertaining viewing. In their time, Hitchcock thrillers were excellent; this one is not. The comparison is inappropriate. Watch something else.

Fmovies: 'Harry' is a portrait of a marriage. Reviewers have pointed out the film's debt to Hitchcock - why do people always call films which 'borrow' the superficials (plot, music, characters, set-pieces etc.) Hitchcockian, when his true inheritors are directors like Godard and Marker? - but his oeuvre only contains two notable films about marriage, 'The Man who knew too much' and 'The Wrong Man'. These films show marriage cracking under the strain of some exterior threat.

'Harry' begins with a marriage already at crisis point - symbolically confined in an old car without air conditioning, driving towards a delapidated country house, young children bawling, mother unable to do anything, father getting increasingly frustrated, all seat-belted for greater entrapment. I remember it well. Laurent Lucas is the new Francois Cluzot, the grim, unhappy, modern man conspired against by circumstances that are not melodramatic, but everyday; financial, parents, frustrated ambitions etc.

If this is Hitchcock, it is a French version as mediated by Chabrol - there is the same contrast between the artificiality of the plot and the natural surroundings that stage it. This opening of a car, a family, classical music, the drive to a summer retreat, the intrusions of two strangers, remind me of another recent European thriller, Haneke's 'Funny Games'.

The film borrows from a lot of Hitchcockian sources - 'The Man who knew too much', 'Vertigo', 'Psycho', 'The Trouble with Harry' (in reverse), especially 'Strangers on a train' - Harry's character is sometimes more Highsmith than Hitchcock, a mixture of Tom Ripley and Dickie (here it is the rich man who wants to belong with the less well-off).

The meeting of Michel and Harry is signalled with HItchcockian criss-cross; ominously, in a public lavatory. There is a sense of magic or fairy tale here, as the two characters and their reflections reunite and fragment at the same time, suggesting a transformation scene, a switching of personalities and identities. It is at the moment when Michel feels most exasperation (and the need for gender security, in the male toilets) that Harry turns up, suggesting that he is Michel's double, an expression of his unconscious desires, somebody who will do what he wouldn't dare. This is the 'transference of guilt' narrative beloved of Hitchcock, one which found its purest expression in 'STrangers'.

There are some reasons why this contrivance does not carry the same weight here. Firstly, both characters are unpleasant and unlikely to win much audience support - 'STrangers' is so disturbing because the good guy is so cold, ruthless and unsympathetic, while the baddie seems vulnerable, and his motives are comprehensible. There are occasional attempts to suggest Harry's demons, as he screams in silence like a Francis Bacon painting. Michel, while never likable, is not calculating enough to provide an effective contrast. This blunts the transference of guilt - it is his wife, Claire, who resents his parents, who wishes for a bigger car etc. She also bears the film's misogyny, perhaps Hitchcockian, as she shows no sympathy towards her husband's creative endeavours (an attempt to regain childhood?), but as this only surfaces in the last ten minutes, it denies the plot frisson.

In the half-century since 'STrangers', Moll is still coy about homosexuality; although he never show

With a Friend Like Harry is a jewel of its kind, Hitchcock would love it. Consider that most of it takes place either indoors or outdoors at night or on menacing serpentine roads. Very claustrophobic effects, just like the master himself. And it is devoid of the usual clichéd homages & in-jokes that prevail in the usual Hitchcock wannabe film. It builds smoothly & menacingly, with perfect tempo, the characters are believable to the point of banality - again, just like the master's very best films. But over & above the expert elements of suspense & character & humor that pervade this movie, I would like to add that it is a delicious contemporary reading of the universal Faust legend & to me that is it's ultimate brilliance.

With a Friend Like Harry... fmovies. 'Harry, He Is Here To Help' is a pretty awful title for a very entertaining French thriller. I can't claim it is the greatest thriller I've ever seen, or that it will change your life, but it's well written with interesting characters, isn't as obvious and predictable as most Hollywood movies in this vein, and it has a satisfying conclusion. As modern thrillers go, it's a very enjoyable one and should please most fans of the genre. The strength of the movie is in the performances of the two main male leads, Larent Lucas who plays Michel and Sergi Lopez who plays Harry. I can imagine if this was remade in Hollywood and they were played by (insert likely actors here) just how obvious and stereotypical their characters would be. Michel bumps into Harry while traveling with his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner) and three young daughters. Harry is an old school chum that Michel has long forgotten, but it quickly becomes obvious that Harry remembers Michel, quoting from memory a poem he wrote in High School that Michel can hardly even recall writing. Harry charms Michel and pretty soon Harry and his beautiful girlfriend Plum (Sophie Guillemin) are invited along to Michel and Claire's modest holiday house. Harry is quirky but charming and reveals that he is independently wealthy. His reminisces about Michel's youthful writing stirs up something long forgotten in Michel, and this, along with Harry's insistence on helping financially, creates tension between Michel and his wife. However things aren't as straightforward as that. Harry has other ideas in mind... I won't spoil what happens as the story progresses, that would ruin the fun. An enjoyable thriller, nothing more, nothing less. Highly recommended.

The thing I appreciated most about this movie was the still moments, so unlike the average bombastic Hollywood product that never has a stop-and-listen moment, a stop-and-consider moment or a stop-and-feel moment. (Ever notice in American movies of the last ten years, even when the characters are stopping to think --rare as THAT is-- there is a veritable tempest of Wagnerian bluster on the sound track. Mainstream movies have gotten to where they never, NEVER shut up and let up, even for a moment; you must be manipulated every second you are in the theater. I walk out of "intense" movies, not exhausted, but rather, quite vexed by the hammy, heavy-handed obviousness of it all. --And a little deafened, usually, besides.)

There was nothing obvious in this film. At the end, you feel closure, and yet you are free to wonder at exactly what Harry's behavior meant and about the origins of his unique world-view. That is a thing to treasure, a movie that knows enough what it is about to offer closure, yet leave your mind free to wander over the relationships and lives of the people you have just watched briefly from a distance, and reflect on possible meanings.

A wonderful film.

There is something alarming and off-kilter about Harry from the moment we meet him; his casual way of speaking about orgasms and forgotten childhood poems to (essentially) complete strangers just a few hours after their first meeting only intensifies our suspicions. Sergi Lopez gives a brilliantly unnerving yet subtle performance as Harry, and he's the best reason to see the film. But not the only one. The director is able to present characters, situations and family tensions that are thoroughly believable, thereby drawing us deeply into the story. The acting is first-rate, the camerawork excellent; what the film needed to help it move into the realm of "great" was a little more snap. (***)