Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.

GazerRise Fantastic!

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Kirpianuscus it is a strange word, no doubt. because it is the kind of film who reminds old embroideries. the performance of Michel Blanc is the basic argument for this definition. but it is , in same measure, the result of beautiful performance of Sandrine Bonnaire. a film as a challenge. the mark of Simenon and a wise science to explore details. a beautiful build of tension and use of cultural/social references. and the portrait of innocence in the most subtle, delicate, precise and touching manner. a film about the woman/man near you. as question and provocative self definition and reflection. or, only, as painful lost of illusion.

Armand a film about solitude, vulnerability . delicate, precise, impressive. Brahms, Simenon and perfect cast. and a rare science of nuances use. an adaptation. who can be poem or parable or warning. or just pure testimony. about image and its root, about the other as part of yourself, about refuge and love. extraordinary in this case is the brilliant measure. the delicacy of images, the role of puzzle pieces of events, the confession as silence and the gestures as speeches. a movie who can becomes an experience for viewer. not only artistic one - that is, certainly, its first virtue - but a kind of new perception about the other and about yourself, about architecture of relationship and about the search of truth price. beautiful and deeply good.

benjones-11 Having read some of the negative reviews regarding this film, I think the first thing to make clear here is that there is no point in watching this film if your idea of a perfect movie is Jurassic Park or The Da Vinci Code.This is a film that focuses not on the story itself, but more on the characters and the emotions that reside within them. The above mentioned films take an idea for a story (a dinosaur filled wildlife park or a mysterious religious secret) and then devise a plot which is by far and away beyond what would ever happen in the real world.In contrast, Monsieur Hire takes a story in which very little happens: A man is suspected of a murder. The man is a reclusive misfit, devoid of charm or humour, but he harbours a love for a woman he has never even met: a woman he knows only through seeing her from his apartment window. Unlike the aforementioned films, the plot, from beginning to end, can be summarised within just a few sentences. But it is what is behind the plot which makes this movie incredible. It is the notion of love which drives the film.The acting and directing show passion that is more intense and sexual than anything I have seen, yet it does so without even a hint of what you would expect from a film described as "intense" and "sexual". The intensity of the love shown by the protagonist is beyond anything that one would have seen before, and yet it is far from the purity that one would normally associate with such an emotion. Indeed, it is dark and tense, and due to the questionable character of its object, one is left in turmoil as to whether this love is to be admired, pitied or instead viewed as just desserts for a man of his nature.Those who have scored this low on the basis that the characters do not conduct themselves in a "believable way" confound me. The whole point of a film is that it takes you away from the everyday scenario. Most movies show you fairly ordinary people involved in extraordinary stories. This one shows you extraordinary characters involved in a story which (in itself) is fairly ordinary. To score this low based on its plot is to criticise Opera for its storyline. The whole point of the opera is its music, and the whole point of this film is its incredible portrayal of emotion. Brilliantly acted, brilliantly directed, and this will haunt you for some time.If you need your films to be Hollywood factory typecasts then don't watch this. You won't enjoy it. Go and rent out The Expendibles, and leave Monsieur Hire to those who appreciate art when they see it. I'm sorry if that sounds pretentious. I enjoy a cheesy Hollywood flick as much as the next person, but it's sad that there are people who can't see beyond Stephen Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis.

cestmoi Solid and perfectly paced camera work and direction, players of exquisite talent and nuance, make this Simenon novel a powerful film . The winsomeness and cunning of Bonnaire, one of France's great actresses as the love object; the fanatic and unsettling calm conviction of the police detective played by Andre Wilms; the furtiveness, loneliness, and longing of the brilliant Michel Blanc; and the cowardliness and thugness of Thullier, a man made to play the thug, combine to make both a believable tale and a great metaphor for our need for "the other." The Brahms loop in the vital scenes of longing are a masterful touch. A work of great competence, sensitivity, and truth. What is essential in the novel but too subtly hinted at in the film, is anti-semitism only suggested by the revealing of M. Hire's original family name in questioning by the detective. A truly great film.