With a Friend Like Harry...

A French film set on a summer holiday. Michel has set out with his wife and three small daughters. The car has no air conditioning, the weather is hot, the children are shouting in the back and the house they are going to has not been repaired. At a service station he meets Harry. The man remembers him from their last year at school and Michel does not remember him. Harry recites from memory a poem published in the school magazine at the time. Harry and his girlfriend accompany them to the house and stay. After that Harry starts entering their life. He learns that Michel has stopped writing and treats it as a problem; as he sees it, whatever obstructs should be removed. First he gives them a car. Then he goes further. The tension comes not from threat but from helpfulness: Harry never appears ill-intentioned and says that everything he does is for Michel. At some point Michel notices that it suits him, and that is the genuinely disturbing part. Laurent Lucas plays Michel, Sergi López plays Harry and Mathilde Seigner his wife. Dominik Moll directed. The film won several awards in France and López took the prize for best actor. A strong production for anyone who likes psychological tension and narratives of quiet threat. For a viewer expecting action, the film takes place almost entirely inside a house and in conversation.