“Private Fears inPublic Places is a cascading series of interconnected stories set in present-day Paris, involving seven people whose lives affect one another's although they do not all know one another. It is the gentlest of films, finding humor in these individuals longing to break out of their solitary states. For most of its two hours it plays like a comedy, but its conclusion, evoking the utmost poignancy, serves as a reminder that from the start it has been the human comedy in the most philosophical sense of the term that has engaged Ayckbourn and Resnais, a longtime admirer of the British playwright — his 1993 "Smoking/No Smoking" was also an adaptation from Ayckbourn. Private Fears in Public Places is a film that Jean Renoir would have appreciated.
André Dussolier's Thierry, a silver-haired real estate agent polite to the point of diffidence, shows apartments to Laura Morante's Nicole, but they're all too small. The irony is that Nicole may not be needing a bigger place because her longtime relationship with Dan (Lambert Wilson) seems to be rapidly disintegrating. Dan, a senior career officer, has been dismissed from the army because of a scrape involving soldiers under his command and in his devastated state has been finding it difficult to go out and find a job. ...“
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