Intimate Strangers (Confidences trop intimes) (R)

synopsis

A disturbed-looking woman named Anna enters a Paris apartment building where white-collar professionals conduct business from their homes. The concierge--whose chronic involvement in a dopey soap opera is a wink to the melodrama at work in ordinary lives--tells her that Dr. Monnier's practice is on the fifth floor. Anna takes the elevator, chooses a door and is admitted by William, whose secretary has left for the day. Obviously upset, Anna explains it's an emergency. With minimum prompting from William, she quickly reveals she's been married for four years and works in an upscale luggage boutique. Her husband is unemployed, and, although their love life was formerly quite satisfying, they haven't had sex for six months. She thinks she's going crazy. Talking seems to make Anna feel better and she spontaneously proposes a date and time for their next appointment. She then leaves without having given her name or phone number. Later, William explains his predicament to ex-wife Jeanne; the audience discovers that although he does have a couch in his office and there was a book about psychoanalysis on his desk, William is actually a financial planner specializing in tax problems. Psychiatrist Dr. Monnier, whom Anna meant to see, has an office a few doors down on the same floor. Jeanne, who's traded in the unassuming and fastidious William for outgoing hulk Luc, tells her former love that he must come clean. But although William does his level best to remedy the misunderstanding, Anna doesn't let him get a word in edgewise on her subsequent visit as she spills ever more intimate details about her private life.