Traceless (2010) Movie Review, Trailer, Film Still and Poster

France, Belgium 2010
Director: Grégoire Vigneron
Cast: Benoît Magimel, François-Xavier Demaison, Julie Gayet, Léa Seydoux, Jean-Marie Winling
Rating: -
Language: French
Release Date: 10 March 2010 (France)
Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes

The Movie Review

Traceless film still 1


TRACELESS (Sans laisser de traces)
Storyline:
Cast:
Ending:
Overall:

It's always fun encountering a relatively unknown movie which turned out to be very engaging. Quite the contrary with several mainstream Hollywood features which at first were advertised as some kind of epical achievements in motion picture but turned out nothing but a Big Blah of Bummer! Really, at first I didn't know what to expect out of this French drama, and sometimes not knowing at all of what you're getting into can be an exciting viewing experience.

Étienne Meunier (Benoît Magimel) is a very successful man working in household products but he always seems unhappy even though seemingly sitting on top of the world with a beautiful wife, Clémence Meunier (Julie Gayet), and a promising prospect to be the president of a huge company with 15,000 employees! But his sudden unlikely meeting with an old high school buddy, Patrick Chambon (François-Xavier Demaison), is going to have a huge impact on his life. Étienne, apparently, holds a disgusting secret of his success and he's overwhelmed by guilt. Eventually he decides to console it with Patrick. However, his decision to do the things advised by Patrick would proof to be a horribly un-ending life-altering experience for him.

Traceless AKA Immaculate AKA Sans laisser de traces is a gripping drama from France. This is a slick story of a man's dilemma taken to another level of dark continuous actions equaled only by its sickening and emotional consequences. This type of movie is quite rare to find these days and when I had this playing in front of me, I just so excited. The truth is, this is the kind of feature film that you would see while spending your time alone in the afternoon. The story moves in a steady pace with neat editing which every scene feels important to the progress of the plot. The acting department is great, François-Xavier Demaison looks so annoying it helps to inject more emotion and Benoît Magimel is just the right cast to portray a deeply troubled man. The cinematography and the visuals have good impact on the overall viewing experience too.

This movie here is really a nice surprise. Although actually, if I'm to be very critical about it, I would call Traceless as unashamed rip-off/copycat of a Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) which features Scarlett Johansson and won the Academy Award 2006 for Best Original Screenplay! The resemblances are clear, right from the very start of it. However, honestly... Traceless is still one darn fine emotionally intriguing drama by its own accord. Match Point is still better in the final important resolution. Thankfully, the writers of Traceless manages to tweak the story and imbues the plot with something very European-like (with some parts thanks to Julie Gayet) and there is something more deep and exciting about Traceless.