Private Fears in Public Places

For the first hour this plays like a weak comedy, and the 25-year age difference between the actors playing the brother and sister does nothing for its credibility. Then it turns dark and what manifests is a sad and compelling if rather misogynistic (but honest?) view of life in a modern city. I will certainly be trying other films by Alain Resnais.

Quite an understated little movie but its interesting. Not quite sure of the symbolism of the constantly falling snow but I like it. Laura Morante is amazing (obviously). My favourite character is the Estate Agent Thiery though, great little study of a man of a certain age. Not in your face with its character developments its a subtle little ensemble number. I liked it a fair bit. Paris - early nineties, dating and mating movie.

Like all Resnais's films, there's a fascinating quality here - a superficial dazzle - that leads you to suspect hidden depths. I kept waiting and watching and waiting, but the depths were never really there.

However beautifully acted, shot, edited it may be, Ayckbourn's original play lacks guts. You can't help feeling these are English sitcom characters stuck in a French setting. They never quite ring true. It's Reggie Perrin / Terry & June but transposed to Paris.

And again like all Resnais's films it takes itself terribly seriously. A mistake given there's nothing really to take seriously in the script. What this film really lacks is - canned laughter.

what a waste of time....I was hoping for a good saturday night movie and it turned out to be completely rubbish

This film is a direct lift from the Alan Ayckbourn play Private Fears in Public Places and my initial interest was in Alain Resnais - there is enough in this to have kept me entertained for the whole film. I’ve completely missed the boat on Alan Ayckbourn - particularly with his being located so close to us here in the North East of England.

Is that a great oversight on my part - I don’t think so on this showing. The strength of Resnais film is the quality of the characterisations - I particularly liked André Dussollier - not in the characters themselves. The plot seems to lead nowhere and there is nothing in the inner life of this collection that particularly touched me.

Nice enough film, good locations but nothing that would lead me all the way to Scarborough - fair enough.