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The Intruder review – the daftest thriller of the entire year

The Intruder review – the daftest thriller of the entire year

The only thing that stops you counting the cliches in this French drama about a sinister au pair is the woefully dim lighting. It’s so obvious that it barely feels worth laughing at its stupidity You wear a tightly belted beige trenchcoat and you live in a cavernous show-home bedecked with mid-century pine and fashionably inadequate lighting. You are French. You have two uncommonly beautiful teenage children and are preparing to return to your prestigious role at a maison de couture after the recent birth of your uncommonly beautiful baby. But mon Dieu , you are anxious! You fear your glamorous workload will interfere with your ability to care for l’enfant . The solution? You will hire an enigmatic au pair. Alas, you have never watched television and are thus unaware that this will expose faultlines in your marriage and lead to a series of increasingly terrifying events that will threaten the very fabric of your existence. You are Paula (Mélanie Doutey), the protagonist of four-part French thriller The Intruder, and you are, ’ow you say, stuffed. To France, then, where Paula and Jérôme, her bearded shrug of a husband (Éric Caravaca), are poised to tick off the first point on their “TV Thriller That Begins with the Ill-Advised Hiring of an Enigmatic Au Pair” checklist. To wit: the interviewing of a childminder who appears – and at this point you may wish to ready the nearest defibrillator – almost too good to be true. Enter Tess (Lucie Fagedet), who doesn’t blink but does have the ability to make baby Orso gurgle with glee, so is hired on the spot. But what is this? Within hours of her arrival Tess is tip-toeing around the family’s bewilderingly dark house, staring at Orso’s toys and pawing Jérôme’s shirts. Continue reading...