Note: A couple spoilers.

Imagine if Hitchcock directed a version of "Single White Female" directly after "Strangers on a Train" and had somehow just seen "The Big Chill" and you'll have something close to "With a Friend Like Harry..." Oh yeah, and if Hitch were French too.

Hitchcockian in the best sense of the word. That's the way to describe neophyte Director Dominik Moll's film. He crafts a slow and subtle plot that goes over the top only once. Watching his film, we might know nothing is afoot for at least 45 minutes if it weren't for the ominous music that Moll uses throughout the set-up. At first, I felt Moll was tipping his hand here, letting us know immediately that the titular Harry (Sergi Lopez) is not as nice as he seems. But Moll takes over an hour for Lopez to commit his first heinous act. So the ominous tone of the score only serves to unnerve us, to force us to wonder when something unnatural is going to take place. The music keeps us on our toes, perks up our ears and forces us to notice minute details, forces us to look beneath the surface in ways that the other characters cannot. Not to take away from Moll's cinematics, which are right on the money. But the music and sound design is the coup-de-grace.

Harry meets Michel (Laurent Lucas) in a public bathroom and immediately recognizes him from school days. The middle-aged Michael, saddled with wife and three small girls, doesn't seem to place his former acquaintance. Michel's a bit preoccupied trying to keep all the desperate angles of his life, his wife and kids, his parents and his dilapidated summer home, together. Harry, we soon discover, is as free as a bird. Nothing seems to slow him down. And although we never really know exactly how, Harry seems to have all the time and money he needs. He also seems to think of himself as a problem-solver and as time progresses, he tries, in his own strange ways to help Michel. In the end, of course, he has helped, but not without paying a price.

Harry's interest in Michel is strange. Enamoured with the now middle-aged man's writing from years ago, Harry can even recite one of his chum's old poems that was printed in a school rag. But while his interest may seem academic, there is also a strange sort of underlying repressed homoeroticism that is never fully explored. No doubt, this effect begins when the two men meet in a public lav. But this underlying homoeroticism, repressed as it is, is exactly as it should be in the film. Because Harry isn't gay, nor is Michel, it remains under the surface. Yet Harry's interest in Michel is not "normal." Something is off the mark here. And in placing some of the seeming justification in this deeply repressed sexual area, Moll allows viewer to either see it or not. Not one overt moment of it is on screen yet, to me, it spoke volumes about what was happening here. By doing this, or doing this minutely, Moll avoids being politically incorrect yet still manages to make the sexual uneasiness of the friendship smolder slightly. It's fantastic work.

This is truly an amazing film, so unlike Hollywood in it's ability to tell a fascinating story that involves some minor violent action and loads of suspense, but never fails to be intelligent and engrossing as well. It moves at it's own pace but is never dull or plodding. Moll hits all the right marks in tone and pacing. Only his ending, his true climactic moment, is a bit too subtle. But, yet, it all rings amazingly true. A really remarkable film.

You don't need to be adventurous to enjoy "With a Friend Like Harry..." This isn't some artsy French film. It's storytelling is quite straightforward. You only need to be able to tolerate subtitles and to enjoy a truly suspenseful and interesting plot. Moll takes you by the hand and guides you just deeply enough below the surface of the plot for you to get it all. And he does so without ever hitting a bump. A truly great film from a truly gifted new filmmaker.

Note:

In French with subtitles.

The film's French title, "Harry: Un Ami Qui Vous Veut de Bien" is literally translated as "Harry: He is Here to Help." The film was to be called "Harry is Here to Help" in the US for several months until Miramax opted for the new title.

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