Choses Secretes (aka Secret Things)

It had been a while since Wife and I watched a film, so we decided to check out one of those sitting on our side awaiting our beady eyes. The choices before us were Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Secret Things. Wife really is not very interested in the former, which surprises me cos I think it sounds cool, so we opted for the latter. And that was fine with me cos it's got naked ladies in it. If nothing else, the French are good at finding any opportunity to put naked ladies in films!

Choses Secrètes is a film of two halves, shall we say. And, purely by coincidence, we watched it in two halves, having a five-minute break after the first hour to set the video recording for Big Brother. Oh, perhaps I shouldn't have admitted to that. Oops.

The first half sets up the relationship between a young girl who has been working the bar at a strip club and one of the dancers from the same club. Within minutes of the film's start, these two girls have become friends when both are sacked from their jobs. The dancer teaches the barmaid about sexuality and how to get what she wants out of men. And let's face it, men are idiots where sexy women are concerned.

All goes swimmingly for the first hour, more or less, of the running time, but then enter Evil Male Protagonist. Here is a chap who is going to turn our heroines' theory on its head. This is a bloke who has had girls set themselves on fire in front of him when he has used them up and worn them out and has no further need of their charms. Our girls know he is going to be a tough nut to crack, but it seems they'll have a go. But wait, what's this? A betrayal from within the ranks? Aahhhh, girls, girls, girls... When will you learn? Your inability to get on with your fellow female, especially where men are concerned, is always your downfall.

It is bizarre how the tone of the movie changes. It's not entirely unexpected: it's almost as though there is no choice but for it to go the way it does. But even so, it does go mad. Okay, step back a mo, we're not talking Salò weirdness here; more Eyes Wide Shut with that bad guy from The Crow and maybe with a twist of Bound, but still...

I think I quite liked it. It always takes me a while to get a feel for a film. I can't even discuss most films properly until I've slept on it. Sometimes it takes a couple of days for it to really sink in. Of course, the bad films have already been forgotten by then, making it difficult to write any sort of reviewy thing. This wasn't a bad film, though. It wasn't great, either, but it is another one of those "you could do a lot worse in two hours" kind of flicks.

Shall I introduce some kind of rating system for my reviews? Let's give it a go. I give this film 62 out of 100.