Intimate Strangers

By PETER CALDER

(Herald rating: * * * *)

French maestro Leconte - the writer-director of The Hairdresser's Husband and Monsieur Hire - has said that this, his 20th feature, will be his last to deal with "love and intimate affairs".

It's the kind of picture the French - who seem to have a surer sense than the rest of us of the workings of the human heart - do so well. And Leconte is first among equals. The impish ironic sense recalls Woody Allen when he was making pictures like Another Woman and Hannah and her Sisters, but Leconte likes people more than Allen does and he doesn't hold his characters so aloof.

The main character in this film (whose French title, interestingly, contains the words "too intimate") is Anna (the mesmerisingly watchable Bonnaire) who goes to talk to a psychotherapist about her loveless marriage. We know almost instantly that she has mistakenly entered the next-door office of tax accountant William Faber (Luchini); it's not long before he knows, too. But it's in the murky territory between that moment and when Anna realises what's happened - and particularly what happens next - that the film weaves a special kind of magic.

The relationship between the pair plays out as playful rather than explicit - and as a result it's deliriously sexy: a moment when he assists her with a zip positively crackles with erotic tension. The film is also infused with a sly humour: when Faber goes to tell the real therapist (Duchaussoy) what's happened, he remarks that they both advise their clients "what to declare and what to hide".

And it is, in the end, hugely engrossing, particularly for a film set almost entirely in an office. Leconte matches his form perfectly to his content: at the start the compositions are formal, static and gradually the camera - like the characters - loosens, starts to move, and resorts at times to intense close-up.

Those who enjoyed the tantalising A Pornographic Affair of a few years back will find much to admire here; it's as good an introduction as any to the work of a true original.

CAST: Sandrine Bonnaire, Fabrice Luchini, Michel Duchaussoy

DIRECTOR: Patrice Leconte

RATING: M, sexual themes

RUNNING TIME: 104 minutes

SCREENING: Rialto