Sindre Kaspersen French director and writer Michel Spinosa's third feature film tells the story about librarian Anna M. who's quiet life with her mother in Paris takes an irreversible turn when she meets a doctor and immediately arises an obsessive infatuation for him.This French psychological thriller written and directed by Michel Spinosa is an efficient fable about the dark and delusional aspects of love, which has one of the most convincing portrayals of a femme fatale since Glenn Close in Adrian Lyne's "Fatal Attraction" (1987). Continuously examining the protagonist on her devoted crusade towards a man she has convinced herself to be the one and only object of her affection, Michel Spinosa creates a suspenseful study of character which is one of the finest amongst the numerous films dealing with the theme of obsessive love. The direction is on point, the dialog is well written, the music and the enigmatic atmosphere is pivotal and Isabelle Carre's performance as an uncompromising femme fatale who renounces everything for an illusion of love in this character-driven drama, is sterling.

fedor8 I'll have to admit that French movies have come a long way since the 60s and 70s, a period during which vastly overrated - but occasionally barely competent - filmmakers such as Godard, Bunuel, and Rohmer bombarded the viewers with plot-less, overly political, and usually pretentious easy-to-make, pointless, free-for-subjective-interpretation, fill-in-the-meaning-yourself baloney. France is still the source of many dumb films (but, hey, so is Hollywood), yet the direction has become far more skillful, and French editors have finally left the unemployment lines and started being hired to do their (underrated) jobs. Many of the older French flicks look as if ALL the scenes that were shot were stuck into the end-product...ANNA M isn't exactly the first movie to deal either with insanity or stalkers, but it's one of the better ones. This is due in large part to Isabelle Carre's charisma and her ability to pull off an ideal, gradual schizophrenic jump from the likable, naive young spinster to the malicious, tunnel-vision-obsessed loon.The only significant drawbacks can be found around the middle, when the movie drifts slightly into far-fetched territory: the whole nonsense about no-one in the police believing the doctor went into overkill drive for a short while there...The ending is somewhat problematic. The birth of her child "cures" her, calms her down: I don't buy that.

missingtth ...then you have to back-up and start watching some Michael Haneke films. His work is brilliant, and makes Spinoza's film seem like a generic French thriller that pales in comparison. This film requires an immense degree of suspended disbelief which makes it unwatchable in my opinion. Am I supposed to believe the events that transpire in the film? Seriously? This film is really far fetched and the lead actress' performance is grating because of its one-dimensiality. Her obsession is just too much. And it cannot carry the film. No one is that obsessed in this world (okay, almost no one), certainly not over a Doctor??? Come on. Get serious.If they would have examined her relationship to her mother (like Haneke did in The Piano teacher) in a more thorough manner then it might have helped out in terms of the character development, but these characters just develop in such narrow terms.I take French Cinema very seriously, but I must admit that this is just average fare. Mediocre at best.

guy-bellinger I did not particularly appreciate Michel Spinosa's former movie "La Parenthèse enchantée". As a result I was not particularly keen on seeing his next. But I happened to see the trailer for "Anna M." and I was hooked. I HAD TO rush to a theater: thrills seemed to be guaranteed.And I was not let down. With this film Spinosa proves he has made tremendous progress (to my mind at least). His hand as a director has become firmer and the subject he has picked this time around is both an exciting and accurate depiction of a psychiatric clinical case, erotomania as it happens. He has also chosen Isabelle Carré, the ideal actress for the role.The whole plot revolves around an attractive young woman named Anna M. (is "M." a reference to Fritz Lang's accursed "hero"?) who suffers from solitude and depression. After failing to kill herself she is brought back to life thanks to the care of Doctor André Zanevsky. She soon falls in love with him, totally disregarding the fact that the man she shamelessly calls André is happily married and remains totally unresponsive to her advances.Unknown to the doctor and even to herself, Anna suffers from erotomania and having become fixated on him she cannot be reasoned with any more.Her behavior -now laughable now extremely dangerous- is very well documented and described. Open your medical dictionary and you will realize that all that is shown on the screen corresponds to what is written in the book, notably the evolution of the disease in four stages: illumination, hope, spite and hatred. Likewise, the interview led by the psychiatrist before Anna is discharged from mental hospital rings true. Just like in real life the therapist tries to find out through a series of questions whether the patient can be regarded as cured or if she is faking. And does it with such empathy, such humanity you would never say the scene is being played by ... an actor!Of course "Anna M" is not in the least a medical documentary for all that.. The story comes first and the writer/director masters it to perfection. After a half-toned beginning tension soon rises and uneasiness sets in never to release its grip until the end, except maybe during the appeased (although ambiguous) final sequence. The climactic scenes (the attempted murder in the subway, Anna with the two little girls, Anna's relapse) are all duly impressive and call to mind prestigious names like those of Hitchcock ("Psycho" and Roman Polanski ("Repulsion"), among others.Isabelle Carré must be praised for her interpretation, for she is the backbone of the whole effort. Had she not lived up to the spectators'expectations the film would have been a terrible flop even if it had been good in all the other departments. But there was nothing much to fear from such a talented young woman, who is so committed to her art and who has already proved how varied her abilities are ("Les sentiments", "Se souvenir des belles choses", "Holy Lola","Quatre étoiles"). Wholly immersed in her character she is every inch the troubled heroine, in turns sweet, fragile, mean and wild. I now look forward to seeing Michel Spinosa's next. Will I be disappointed? Time will tell.