Synopsis
Paul Exben is a success story – partner in one of Paris's most exclusive law firms, big salary, big house, glamorous wife and two sons straight out of a Gap catalog. But when he finds out that Sarah, his wife, is cheating on him with Greg Kremer, a local photographer, a rush of blood provokes Paul into a fatal error.
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Cast
- Romain DurisPaul Exben
- Marina FoïsSarah
- Catherine DeneuveAnne
- Niels ArestrupBartholomé
- Branka KatićIvana
- Eric RufGrégoire Kremer
- Enzo CaçoteHugo Exben
- Luka AnticBaptiste
- Rachel DesmarestFiona Exben
- Esteban Carvajal-AlegriaValéry Grey
Recommendations
- 90
The New York Times
Paul is not a sociopath like Tom Ripley, and the movie does not convey the same diabolical Hitchcockian sense of being manipulated by a slightly sadistic master puppeteer. As the story sprawls across the screen, it darts from one incident to the next as though it were inventing itself as it goes along. - 88
New York Post
Much of the plot stretches credulity, but the way it's constructed keeps tension high. - 75
The A.V. Club
For most of the way, right up until a hastily contrived and deeply unsatisfying ending, the film perceptively sketches a fractured identity, a man who enters a new life carrying painful remnants of the old. - 70
Village Voice
For most of the film, Lartigau creates the tension of a Hitchcockian thriller solely through Paul's interior struggle. - 70
NPR
The Big Picture has been compared to "The Talented Mr. Ripley," the twice-filmed Patricia Highsmith novel about a sociopath who kills and then impersonates a rich acquaintance. But in spirit it's closer to Michelangelo Antonioni's 1975 "The Passenger," with Jack Nicholson as an existential adventurer who poses as a dead stranger. - 60
Empire
A few plot holes hold back what is otherwise a well cast and compelling picture. - 60
The Guardian
The direction from Eric Lartigau keeps things moving along fast and furious: preposterous it may be, the movie is carried off with some style. - 60
Time Out
The Big Picture is really Duris's picture; the actor toggles effortlessly between arrogant, feral, remorseful and ruthless as the plot throws one curveball after the next.
