The Adversary (2002)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties. It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

SPOILER: Once in a while you come across a movie about which you know from the first moment on what has happened and still you aren't able to turn it off or to switch to another channel. You keep watching, because you want to know everything about it. Why that is, I don't know, but I find it very intriguing and I guess it only proves the quality of these movies."L'Adversaire" or "The Adversary" is such a movie. From the first moment on you know that Daniel Auteuil's character Jean-Marc Faure has done something terrible to his family. You know he has murdered his wife and children, but you don't know why. Only when you keep watching until the end you'll see that the man has been living a lie for the past twenty years and that he wasn't able anymore to continue like that. He had made everybody believe that he was a successful doctor, working for a prestigious medical institution. Next to his 'dayjob' he also invested money for his friends and relatives, which in reality he used to live on, buying his family more expensive homes and cars, and sustaining a young mistress for himself. But eventually people wanted to see some returns on their investments or wanted to withdraw large sums that he couldn't possibly give them. So he kept stalling and putting them off until he ran totally out of options and his whole world came crashing down ... resulting in his final, chilling act of desperation.What perhaps is even the most chilling thing about this movie is that it has been based on true events. Yes, if you turn on the news, you regularly get to hear news about a father who has murdered his entire family because they were in big financial problems, but it is never shown in so much detail as it is in this movie. In this movie you get to see, thanks to a complex series of flashbacks, the investigation after the murder, showing how he starts getting into trouble until he has only one option left. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people had to swallow a couple of times when seeing it all and I admit that I was one of them.Next to the chilling story, the acting is something else that deserves noticing. I'm not very familiar with these actors, but they all did a nice job. Especially Daniel Auteuil (the only actor that I have heard of before), who is absolutely terrific. He has managed to help you understand why the man did it, without saying that what the man did was right or wrong. I'm not saying that you'll like the man, but you'll understand him and that's something very special for a movie like this one. All in all this is some very powerful cinema like you don't get to see it very often. Even if you aren't too familiar with the director or with the actors, even when you aren't used to watch foreign movies, you still should give this one a try. It certainly deserves it. I reward this movie with an 8/10.

What a chilling experience, this terrific movie. Jean-Marc Faure's loneliness in conference halls and on the highway is so painful that it's hard not to feel compassion for him. All my credits to Auteuil and Garcia for this moving film. As you probably know, L'adversaire was based on a tragedy that truly happened some ten years ago. It didn't just inspire one, but two directors. The other film based on this story is L'emploi du temps, by Laurent Cantet. I watched it yesterday, and I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. Having read the very enthusiastic comments on this site, I expected a film of equal quality as L'adversaire but the latter outclassed it by far. I missed the palpable loneliness and desperateness in l'Adversaire, and Daniel Auteuil is in my opinion simply a more interesting and accomplished actor than Aurélien Recoing. If you haven't seen either of the films, I recommend you watch L'emploi du temps first, or just L'adversaire. It's always interesting to compare, but if you have already seen L'adversaire, you might be in for a little disappointment.

It' sad, It's Hard but is a nice movie, some times is touching but the leit motiv of the film is how can a man act all his life pretending to be another completely different person, and anyone could notice anything, that's bizarre. That's were the movie lacks a reason or a mixture of thoughts to express to explain how could it be.

This movie is adapted from a true story, the one of Jean-Claude Roman, a man who made his family and friends believe for 18 years that he was a searcher at the OAS when he didn't even had a job. For 18 long years, he had been crooking his parents and fooling his relations till he finally got discovered. He then killed his wife, children, mother and father. Revealing the end of this story won't bother the appreciation of this movie, since it's a well known news item in France that deeply moved the population in the 90's. As a matter of fact, the story is fascinating enough to make the script interesting and that is the main problem of the film. It relies almost essentially on the unbelievable destiny of Jean-Marc Faure and the performance of Daniel Auteuil, one the best French actors actors actually. His acting is sober and at some moments is approaching madness with convincing realism. But the staging and the whole ambiance remain cold and distant as if there was since the beginning a shift between Faure and the others. This creates an embarrassment that keep us from understanding him.Anyway, it is worth seeing this movie, above all if you don't know the story yet. The only fact to know that this really happened makes you watch it with interest. Another movie was made upon this story, `L'emploi du temps' by Laurent Cantet.