Anything for Her

2008 "In a second, their life will change..."
7.1| 1h36m| en
Details

Lisa and Julien are married and lead a happy uneventful life with their son Oscar. But their life radically changes one morning, when the police comes to arrest Lisa on murder charges. She's sentenced to 20 years of prison. Convinced of his wife's innocence, Julien decides to act. How far will he be willing to go for her?

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Also starring Lancelot Roch

Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.
JinRoz For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!
Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
gradyharp TOUT POUR ELLE (Anything for Her) was the original story and film from which THE NEXT THREE DAYS was adapted. In many ways this film is at least as strong as the Paul Haggis version with Russell Crowe. Here the credits are due to the imagination of writers Fred Cavayé and Guillaume Lemans and directed by Fred Cavayé. It is a very fine character driven thriller that while it may appear incredible to most, it is nonetheless an involving story of a man's love and commitment to his wife. Julien (an impressive Vincent Lindon) is a schoolteacher who has a happy home life with his beautiful wife Lisa (Diane Kruger) and son Oscar (Lancelot Roch). During a quiet evening at home they are disturbed by policemen who arrest Lisa for a murder she claims she did not commit. Jump three years and Julien has been working with lawyers, spending their paltry savings, on getting appeals to get Lisa released from jail. He gets moral support from his parents (Liliane Rovère and Olivier Perrier) but sees his family falling apart. After three years have passed and when all legal portals fail, Lisa attempts suicide and Julien decides the only way to get Lisa out of prison is to aid in her escape. He visits writer Henri Pasquet (Olivier Marchal) who has escaped from prison several times and outlines the dangers AND the only secure methods for affecting a prison escape. John slowly and methodically prepares for the escape, gaining money by contacting drug lord Mouss (Alaa Safi), commits some crimes of his own as he masterminds his plan to successfully extract Lisa from prison. There are many twists and turns to the story, well written subplots and unexpected coincidences, all populated with a very strong cast of capable actors. It is a tense little French film that may not have the better known cast of its later American successor, but it works on a very different level and is a solid psychological thriller. Grady Harp
kosmasp I will write quite a bit about the movie, so I hope you have either seen it, or you don't care to know a few things about the plot. Because this isn't about if Diane Kruger, who gets send to jail quite early in the movie, is innocent or not (we get a flashback after the judge has penalized her). It's about what a husband will go through, for the love of his life.While the son isn't the best actor there is. Too absent most of the time and therefor almost without any emotional impact during a scene at almost the end of the movie. But the lead actor is really good. Diane Kruger has little to say, but her french is really good and she is convincing in her role.Of course it would have been great to see more of the main character, but since most of the time what he does is an inner thing, this might work better as a book. Still there is a second woman who almost comes into his life (well she kinda tries, though it might seem half-hearted for most of the viewers) and while his relationship with his relatives is quite good, you could ask, why Diane's character did not get a similar treatment. Of course if she had gotten somebody else too, she wouldn't seem so isolated, plus it would take quite some time to establish new characters.A good little thriller with quite some personal touches, very well played and nicely shot then.
robert-temple-1 This is a badly conceived thriller. We have a situation where a man's wife is suddenly arrested and sent to prison for murder. There are enough subtle clues in the film for us to be certain of her innocence. Indeed, the murder was really committed by another woman whom we actually glimpse. Creepily, this same woman sits beside the wife in the park and they chat. But this film lets us down. Surely everyone who writes thrillers knows that people want to know whodunit. In this film, the question of what really happened is ignored, and the entire story is based upon the husband (Vincent Lindon)'s efforts to bust his wife out of jail. Really, that is not the way thrillers are supposed to work. Fred Cavayé wrote and directed this film and we should take him over our knee and give him a good spanking. It may be very watchable, but he shattered the canon of the thriller by allowing a mystery to go unsolved. You can't do that and get away with it!
Howard Schumann Julien (Vincent Lindon) is an unprepossessing French teacher, happily married to Lisa (Diane Kruger), a wife he deeply loves. Their idyllic suburban life is rudely interrupted, however, when the police shockingly crash their home and arrest Lisa on suspicion of the brutal murder of her boss. With Lisa's fingerprints on the weapon, and the victim's blood on her jacket, she is found guilty and sentenced to twenty years in prison. If you like your suspense powerful and unnerving, do not hesitate to seek out Anything For Her (Pour Elle), the debut effort of French director Fred Cavayé, an enormously entertaining thriller that delivers a high level of satisfaction.Imprisoned for a crime she probably did not commit (the director offers two possible scenarios but it is clear which one is the more likely), Lisa, still proclaiming her innocence, faces long, dark days ahead without her husband and their young son Oscar (Lancelot Roch). Overwhelmed with sadness, Julien becomes single-minded in his drive to reunite the family. After three years, when his attorney tells him that Lisa stands no chance before the Appeals Court and Lisa becomes suicidal, refusing to take her insulin shots, Julien knows that he must take matters into his own hands and will stop at nothing to accomplish his goal.Locating an ex-con who has written books about his attempts to break out of jail, Julien convinces him to tutor him on the do's and don'ts of prison escape, telling the ex-con that he wants to teach the author's experience to his students. His ultimate plan, though, is not revealed either to Lisa, Julien's parents (Liliane Rovere and Olivier Perrier), or to the audience, which serves to greatly enhance the suspense. To save the woman he loves from certain death in prison, however, Julien must transform himself from laid-back school teacher to action hero, pushing himself far beyond the limits of what is reasonable. While attempting to obtain false papers and new identities, he comes into contact with some very unpleasant local criminal types and finds himself no longer reluctant to use violence to accomplish his ends.Supported by an excellent script by the director, outstanding cinematography by Alain Duplaintier, and a moody score by Klaus Badelt, Anything For Her is entertaining, riveting, and ultimately a very moving love story. None of it would be very convincing, however, if not for the outstanding performances of Lindon and Kruger, especially Lindon whose sudden personality change requires great skill to pull off. Lindon's eyes convey powerful emotion that is not desperation but a strong and unyielding determination that serves as a catalyst for the events that build to the film's heart pounding climax. Although Anything For Her has been criticized for being "implausible", when an individual's every act is consumed with passion and overwhelming intention, then the implausible will most certainly become the expected.