Anything for Her

A film set in France. Julien is a teacher. He lives with his wife Lisa and their small son. One morning the police come. Lisa is arrested. The charge is murder. Her employer has been killed and the evidence points to her. The sentence is twenty years. Julien does not believe it. He hires a lawyer. The appeal is refused. Then again. Three years pass. Lisa worsens in prison. There is an attempt on her own life. Julien makes a decision. From there the film is a story of preparation. He will get her out. He knows nothing. He does not know the criminal world and has no method. He finds a book. A man who escaped from prison wrote it. He finds him. The man tells him. What works, what does not, and where most mistakes are made. He gives him a list: false papers, money, a vehicle, a route and time. Julien starts working. He tries to buy a passport from a dealer. He is beaten. To find money he breaks into a house. He kills a man. The narrative does not present this as heroism. What the narrative is interested in is not escape but transformation: its idea is that to save his wife the man becomes exactly a criminal, and that there is no way back. There is a deadline as well. The transfer date is set and that day is the only chance. The last section is a chase. The police work through a detective who follows every step one step behind. The narrative does not open whether Lisa was guilty until the end. One scene hints at it and the narrative leaves it there. This is Fred Cavayé's first feature. The film was later remade in America. Vincent Lindon plays the part as an entirely ordinary man. Vincent Lindon, Diane Kruger, Lancelot Roch and Olivier Marchal are in the cast. Who it is for: anyone who likes French thrillers and tightly built genre films. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; some steps of the plan go too easily and the last section leans on coincidence.