Eight years after his wife was brutally murdered, Dr. Alex Beck receives a mysterious email with a subject line only his wife could know. The email contains a video from a surveillance camera at an unknown locale with a woman who looks just like his dead wife Margot staring into the camera. Can it be?
As it turns out, eight years earlier Alex was a prime suspect in the murder (even though he was severely beaten at the same time). Now new evidence has been discovered, and the police are taking an interest again. But there are others who seem to be looking for answers as well, and they will stop at nothing to get what they want.
Tell No One is a masterful suspense film. Director Guillaume Canet has created a tone very reminiscent of Hitchcock films. Like many Hitchcock protagonists, Alex seems to be an innocent man who is being unjustly persecuted. We can’t believe that he did anything to Margot. Indeed, he’s been suffering quietly these last eight years. How could others think he is guilty? And how can he both protect himself and try to learn the truth about Margot and the emails he’s received?
The plot, based on the novel of the same name by American author Harlan Coben, has several twists and lots of complications. The story keeps moving from one problem to another. And after the film, it’s amusing to stand around and discuss all that happened, but I can’t do that here because it would spoil the fun.
While Tell No One definitely belongs in the suspense/thriller genre, at its core it is a love story. As the film opens, Alex and Margot are living what seems to be a perfect life. The first scene is of various friends meeting around the table in a rustic setting. This cabin by a lake is where Alex and Margot come to get away from things. It is very much like Eden, with wilderness all around them. Here they can be naked and not be ashamed. They have grown up together, as we see in flashbacks of innocent childhood kisses and them swimming as children. And like all Edens, there is a tree in the midst of the garden. On that tree they have their initials and marks for their years together.
A few minutes into the film, however, evil enters the garden. We don’t see it; we just hear Margot’s screams. Eden is no more. At one point the police ask Alex when he was last at the lake; he answers “Eight years ago.” Once Eden is lost, can it ever be regained?
There are other signs that remind us of Eden: a stag that comes walking out of the brush with no fear of the man who is standing in a clearing; a serpent-like woman torturer. At the end of the film, which goes back to that lake area, the theme of Eden is returned to as well, just as the Bible begins and ends with Eden (Genesis 2 and 3, and Revelation 21 and 22). The biblical view is that the original Eden cannot be returned to, but a new Eden that brings healing, restoration, and eternal life is yet to come. In Tell No One we don’t know what the new Eden will bring, but it is enough to know that Alex has found his way there and found it even more glorious than before.
