HOLD ME TIGHT (A-minus) - I can't think of another movie-going experience where I almost walked out after 20 minutes but decided to stay and wound up finding the film to be brilliant. Actor Mathieu Amalric goes behind the camera, with impressive skills, to spin this densely constructed story of the wanderings of a woman at the end of her rope who is shown walking out on her husband and kids in the middle of the night.
Amalric, adapting a play, intentionally stirs confusion about what is exactly happening and when, mixing flashbacks in with current events. It takes a while to congeal, and for the longest time, you wonder if Clarisse (Vicky Krieps from "Bergman Island") is nothing more than a miserable absentee mother on some sort of bender. While she pinballs around, Marc (Arieh Worthalter) tends to their little girl (a piano phenom) and younger boy.
Once an equilibrium is reached -- when the viewer may start to catch on about what is really going on here -- a rhythm sets in. During the middle of the film, we get a break from the mother (Krieps can be hard to take during the first half but is redeemed in the second half), and the focus on the father and children is a welcome respite. Meantime, Amalric's visuals and narrative tricks build momentum. The driving piano interludes that include Beethoven's "Fur Elise" -- young Anne-Sophie Bowen-Chatet is wonderful at either playing the keyboards or mimicking the act -- coil the tension a little tighter each time.
Some might be disoriented until the cathartic final scenes. Don't worry. It's OK to sit back and experience Amalric's visual dalliances that both underscore and soften Clarisse's agonizing journey. After 97 minutes, you can just wring yourself out.
BOTH SIDES OF THE BLADE (C-minus) - Talk about bailing .... No matter which side of the blade you pick here, both sides are dull. This is the third recent collaboration between writer-director Claire Denis and star Juliette Binoche, and it falls somewhere between the sly, amusing relationship drama "Let the Sunshine in" and the dispiriting space wank "High Life."
Binoche is Sara, partnered with Jean (our guy Vincent Lindon), who is about to go back in business with Sara's ex, Francois (Gregoire Colin), whom Sara has never gotten over. That's an acceptable premise. But there is no explanation why Denis spends just under two hours spinning her wheels with these three petulant middle-age adults.
The dialogue is both repetitive and overly expositive. Jean is an ex-jock who has done time in prison for some white-collar misdeed, and much of his story is sidetracked by the B-plot of his troubled teenaged son being raised by Jean's mother (the always welcome Bulle Ogier from "Belle Toujours"), a thread that goes absolutely nowhere. Meantime, Sara nags Jean about doing business with Francois, Jean nags her back about continually bringing up Francois, and Francois toys with both of them.
Everyone is annoying. Sara, for no reason, talks out loud to herself about how turned on she is about the thought of seeing Francois again. Denis returns ad nauseam to scenes of Sara in bed, a bare shoulder the main focus. Only a knock-down drag-out argument between Binoche and Lindon late in the film provides grit and realism. Otherwise, these three behave like high schoolers, and watching them act like spoiled brats is not very much fun.
BONUS TRACK
The spare, haunting "Musica Ricercata" provides a taste of the jangled mood Amalric sets in "Hold Me Tight":
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