Blind Date

A man called Machine designs puzzles and games and needs absolute silence to work. Charlotte moves into the next flat and practises the piano; she is preparing for an international competition. The wall between them is paper thin. A war starts, then they come to an understanding by talking through the wall. They live like that for months without seeing each other. The subject is not romance but whether you can know someone without seeing them. Both keep postponing the meeting because they sense that an image will spoil what they have built. The film does not prove that instinct wrong. The form rests on a single location: two flats, a wall and a stairwell. The sound design is the narration here; every knock from the other side carries information. It is Clovis Cornillac's first film as a director, and he stars in it, opposite Mélanie Bernier. The French title, Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément, is the petal-counting rhyme with blindly stuck on the end. Who it is for: viewers who like light French romantic comedy and stories built in one location. Who it is not for: anyone wanting surprise; where this is going is clear in the first ten minutes, and that is exactly where it goes.