Harry, He’s Here to Help

This film had something of a "flying monkeys" theme. Harry, He's Here to Help is a French movie from the year two thousand. (In the United States, it's called With a Friend Like Harry.) The movie tells the story of a seemingly chance encounter between two 30-something men who were at school together. They get to chatting and spend the evening together.

Before long it becomes clear that this is a stalker-type tale with a darkly comic undertone: think Single White Female meets Funny Games, with a good dash of Hitchcock.

It's good stuff. Funny. Edge of the seat in places. Intense. Crazy. Lots of stuff to please the many and the few. And it has great performances from the four leads, as well as talk of flying monkeys, eggs, and orgasms. Well worth a look.

The film runs just short of two hours. Which reminds me... I've noticed that US films seem to be getting shorter, while European films seem to be getting longer. It used to be that 2 hours was the norm for American movies, and 90 minutes for Europe. That trend has now reversed. Does this says more about the ever-dwindling attention span of young Americans or about the ability of European film-makers to create a story more worthy of our time?