Confidentially Yours (1984)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

This film, with some editing and a slight re-write could have been a fantastic film. I wonder if Truffaut's declining health (he died of cancer right after this was completed) perhaps had something to do with the roughness of the plot--there were too many plot holes to keep me engaged. Over and over throughout the film, the characters reacted WRONGLY to a given situation--often in VERY illogical ways. Let me point out a few examples: 1. When the main character confronts his wife about her adulteries, she admits it and treats him like dirt (I mean, she is REALLY obnoxious about it). Then, seconds later the police arrive and she asks him to tell the police she is not home. Fine. But then he DOES EXACTLY WHAT SHE SAID--even though any normal person wouldn't have given a rat's behind for her based on the previous scene AND because his lying to the police only served to implicate him for murder! 2. When the accused man's secretary returns after going to Nice to find clues, the man responds by slapping her--when she is trying to save his sorry butt! Then, she doesn't even get angry or yell at him for physically abusing her! This whole scene made no sense. Perhaps the French treat their women like that, but I seriously doubt it.3. A romance suddenly materializes just before the film ends. Where it came from and why it occurs makes no sense at all. For more info, see #2 above! So, in summary the movie has an excellent overall plot but is just too full of holes and logical errors to make it anything better than an average film. That's a shame because I'm sure Truffaut was capable of better.FYI--One little thing I really DID like about the film is the priest who gets decked towards the middle of the film. When he reappears, I had to laugh out loud!

For such a big Hitchcock fan Truffaut disappointed a bit with this movie. We see the starkness of Hitchcock. We see the mood music as in Psycho. But it is not Hitchcock. The lead actress is unremarkable in every way. Her face is quite gaunt. None of the actors stand out. The story tends to drag. Truffaut was perhaps better for Hitchcock in helping to keep his name before the public than any other director. There is a disparity between his admiration for the British director and his ability to make the same type of suspense films. The film had a very foreign feel to it, not pleasantly so. There was maybe not enough starkness. Definitely not enough richness. But worth seeing to better understand Truffaut's style.

Truffaut´s last film is a funny and smart thriller that feels very Hitchcock inspired.It´s entertaining but has no depth.The acting by Fanny Ardant is very funny and great.Also very beautifully shot in black & white and I think that François Truffaut was one of the best directors and he did some fantastic films.4/5

Confidentially Yours aka Vivement Dimanche is a spoof/tribute to noir/detective/Hitchcock films. Someone (it won't take you long to figure out who) commits a brutal murder and the police suspect Jean Louis Trintignant ( a real estate agent) but his secretary (a girl Friday he has just fired, perfectly played by Fanny Ardant--whose movie this is) investigates (dressed in a trench coat -- why she must wear a trench coat is one of the gags), determined to clear him.It is a shaggy dog because it piles on the clues, close scrapes, crimes, etc. at ten times the rate of the films it salutes. It is a greyhound because it must get all that into 110 minutes, which it does with zest and comic theatricality (referenced of course by the subplot of a comic theatrical performance being given by Ardant's amateur theater group).As film making it would have been a lot fresher if it had been made in 1964 rather than 1984, but that should not effect your viewing experience of an expertly made madcap mystery. I would have preferred the film in color. I know why it is in black and white, but it does not seem to me to have any particular aesthetic merit as a black and white film. While no masterpiece, it was perhaps not a bad way to end a directorial career with a loving look back to all those great mysteries and screwball comedies of yore.