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Tell No One
Music Box Films


7.8

based on 30 reviews
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How did we calculate this?

based on 25 votes
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Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: Not Rated

Starring Kristin Scott-Thomas, François Cluzet, Marie-Josée Croze, André Dussollier, Jean Rochefort, and Marina Hands

Tell No One is based on Harlan Coben's international best-selling thriller about pediatrician Alexandre Beck, who still grieves for his beloved wife Margot Beck, who was murdered eight years earlier. When two bodies are found near the scene of the original crime, the police reopen the case, and Alex becomes a suspect again. The mystery deepens when Alex receives an anonymous e-mail with a link to a video clip that seems to suggest that Margot is somehow still alive and with a message that says "Tell no one." (Music Box Films)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Harlan Coben (novel) Guillaume Canet
DIRECTED BY:	Guillaume Canet
RELEASE DATE:	Theatrical: July 2, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	125 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	France
LANGUAGE(S):	French

Alternative Title: Ne le dis à personne

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Tell No One's plot thickens in about five ways at once, but they're all connected. The issue of how is a riddle that does more than tease --gives you an itch you won't want to stop scratching.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The title Tell No One recalls the days when ads proclaimed, "No one will be seated after the first 15 minutes" and "Be considerate of your neighbors: Don't give away the ending of this picture." Both rules apply to this canny, refreshingly emotional and intuitive thriller.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Cluzet's brooding performance propels the movie, and writer-director Guillaume Canet, best known here for his own acting work in "Joyeux Noel" and "Love Me If You Dare," skillfully orchestrates the cascading revelations.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Spicing up the entire package is a screenplay by Canet and Philippe Lefebvre that bristles with wit and energy.

The New Yorker David Denby

It’s Cluzet’s intense performance that makes this genre piece a heart-wrenching experience.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

Crisply and competently filmed, Tell No One is an intriguing sample of new-school French cinema at the more commercial end of the spectrum.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Beautifully written and acted, Tell No One is a labyrinth in which to get deliriously lost.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Thrillers aren't always so thrilling, but Tell No One is -- and absorbing, sometimes perplexing and often stirring as well.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Author Coben, who says he is a fan of "stories that move you, that grab hold of your heart and do not let it go," has gotten a film that does exactly that.

Time Richard Schickel

Indeed, you could argue that Tell No One is a variant on one of Hitchcock's favorite themes: the running man whose story no one (except us in the audience) believes. These fictions, of course, depend for their success on the French respect for rationalism (and their horror when reason is torn asunder by criminal irrationality).

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The movie brims over with action -- check out Alex's run through traffic on the Paris beltway -- but Canet scores a triumph by plumbing the violence of the mind.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

A terrific mystery, equal parts haunting love story and nimble thriller.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Even when it's baffling, it's never boring. I've heard of airtight plots. This one is not merely airtight, but hermetically sealed.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The result is one of the twistiest thrillers in recent memory.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

In the fine tradition of well-made thrillers, it's enough that it all feels solid at the moment, and the final revelations are unexpected and seemingly inevitable.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

It's a solid study in paranoia and gamesmanship.

Village Voice Ella Taylor

Among the movie's many delights are the fluctuating rhythms of its pacing, an atmospheric volatility that sets off the doctor's blooming paranoia against his sunlit, leafy surroundings, and a terrific cast that includes Kristin Scott Thomas.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A crafty, swift, subtly stylish thriller.

Film Threat KJ Doughton

Tell No One is a French variation on "The Fugitive," but it's a more subtle, discreet animal.

Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt

Has everything a great personal-paranoia/persecution movie needs.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Canet has a good feeling for lowlife atmosphere and he works up a few fine Hitchcockian twirls. Kristin Scott Thomas and Nathalie Baye round out the sleek cast.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

The result is a whodunit so nicely crafted that you're tempted to forgive the Byzantine plot -- hell, you're even tempted to pretend you actually understand its twisting obscurities.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Canet and Lefevre pruned subplots and fixed the novel's ending -- it's now merely preposterous rather than patently absurd – but it's the cast that makes the genre clichés feel vivid and even fresh.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

The story starts at a low boil and quickly heats up, but the problem with Tell No One--a common problem with contemporary pulp literature--is that at some point, all the narrative's intriguing questions resolve with prosaic answers, delivered in long, convoluted speeches by people wielding guns.

Premiere Priya Jain

It's difficult to enjoy a thriller in which the big reveal is such a clunker, but if there's an exception to that rule, Tell No One might be it.

San Francisco Chronicle Reyhan Harmanci

It just does everything really well: perfect pacing, lovely camera work, spot-on acting and an ingenious plot.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Enough talk; enough flashbacks. Sometimes the best thing a mystery can do is give its protagonist a reason to run like hell.

Variety Lisa Nesselson

Though almost laughably intricate in its plotting, this thoroughly Gallic adaptation of Harlan Coben's novel reps an entertaining sophomore outing for thesp-turned-director Guillaume Canet.

New York Post V.A. Musetto

The story becomes so convoluted and contrived that much of the tension dissipates.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Once the final character has put the last puzzle piece in place, courtesy of an epic explanation, a kind of relief sets in: Someone just needed to spell it all out. It does not entirely help.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Eric P. gave it a5:
I've rated this movie a 5, which seems a good score for a well-made movie with a crappy story. To say the plot is implausible is stretching things. I'm not sure it rises to the level of implausibility.

Paul E. gave it a5:
Viewer has no chance in solving the mystery and knows it fairly early in the film. So you just give up and wait for the damn thing to end and explain itself, which it finally does, but the explanation itself has epic length. Much ado about about not much.

Jim G gave it a6:
Engaging, entertaining, energetic!

Steve gave it a7:
Tell Everyone...who enjoys a good mystery thriller film. Guillaume Canet has made a well-directed, atmospheric, slightly edgy translation of Harlan Coben's novel into a French setting, assisted by the most evocative soundtrack. Coben's novels take sometimes incredulous turns, and Tell No One is not one of his best. Still, the production's skill makes Tell No One worth watching. The star, Francois Cluzet, is brilliant, perfect as the confused, hopeful, desperate and despondent husband who does not know with what dangerous entanglements he is involved.

John H. gave it a1:
TRAIN WRECK ALERT !! The New York Post reviewer quoted above comes closest to achieving a degree of lucidity when he writes “the story becomes so convoluted and contrived that much of the tension dissipates”. Amen to that. Because the film begins relatively well and we’re moderately curious about our hero’s plight we stick with the none-too-credible plots twists and turns for a while. HOWEVER once these “developments” take a quantum leap into the bizarre and utterly incredible (a sort of political allegory motif emerges out of nowhere- think -if you dare!- Costa-Garvas meets J.R.R. Tolkien on the Seine !!), followed by a series of quickie bet-you-can’t-follow-the-story-NOW-huh-Bozo ? embellishments that the script writer had to have concocted during an especially horrendous migraine and which make The Big Sleep seem like Goldilocks and The Three Bears we begin to feel “had”. By the time we enter the thick of the Fathers-in-Law-complications-whose-sisters‘ lovers-took those pictures though neither of their aunts were-related after all-but who WERE there the night of the “murder” and-DID pay for the that safety deposit box ALL THOSE YEARS we have landed squarely in the realm of The Preposterous and are ready to board our plane to Buenos Aires no questions asked !! Well MAYBE “Who wrote this thing?? Paul Wolfowitz ?” Anyway we will go quietly...... Suffice to say that this is the sort of movie that gives film critics Panic Attacks when they’re told to go review that snazzy new French thriller that’s getting a lot of Buzz.

Jonathan A. gave it a10:
If you went in looking for a thriller and weren't completely satisfied, there's something wrong with you.

Richard V. gave it a9:
Complex and exciting, even if not completely plausible. Certainly sets your heart to racing. You really need to pay attention and even then, hard to grasp. Not a boring moment. Nice musical score.

Tell No One Music Box Films

Tell No One
Music Box Films