Scribe

A drunk, borderline has-been Duval (François Cluzet) loses his job and spends two years sorting himself out but failing miserably at interviews. A chance encounter with an old acquaintance leads to an interview with a security firm. Here he’s questioned, bluntly, by the business-like Clément (Denis Podalydès).

Duval doesn’t buckle and is offered a job transcribing phone tapped conversations. His instructions are clear (go to a room at the same time to transpose verbatim the conversations (on a typewriter), then leave at the same time, everyday) and to be carried out to the letter. Needless to say, discretion is an absolute requirement all topped by a good salary.

It’s all a bit weird but Duval takes the job and starts work. At first, he’s alone but clearly being kept under surveillance as he’s warned about some minor indiscretions. He’s joined one day by a cocky Gerfaut (Simon Abkarian). It’s now when issues start to come into the light, and get murky at the same time.

And so, we are into Scribe a French thriller written and directed Thomas Kruithof. It’s ‘inspired’ by the Lebanon hostage crisis in 1983-84, when French citizens were kidnapped and their release was allegedly delayed to suit political aims. To say much more would give too much away.

It’s a film of twists and turns, manipulation and deceit delivering some terrifically tense scenes. It is complex, though not convoluted and has a compulsion that just keeps drawing you in.

It looks very good too beautifully clean lines, maybe a touch stylised in parts but on the whole the colour palette and composition are excellent. The performances are first class, with Cluzet slowly picking it all up, getting to grips with what’s enveloping him. Also dragging in Sara (Alba Rohrwacher) whom he meets at an AA meeting at the start of the film. This relationship/friendship doesn’t quite ring true and is a weakness in what is otherwise an enjoyable film.