8.5/10
I've never seen a Francois Ozon movie until now. Though I hear this one is something of a departure for him (someone called it Ozon doing Woody Allen with a bit of Hitchcock), I enjoyed it immensely. When a young student named Claude turns in a "what did you do this weekend" homework assignment into the first chapter into an infiltration into his friend Rapha's family life (befriending Rapha, gaining entry into the house, making mild sexual allusions about his mother), his bored, failed-writer teacher Germaine becomes obsessed, both with Rapha's story and in coaching him to becoming the writer he never did. The situations become more and more absurd - what we see on-screen is what Claude has written, but is it what actually happened? Occasionally Germaine, annoyed with Claude's occasional forays into "sitcom" melodrama or cheap thrills, makes him re-write what happened, which is also shown on-screen - so which is the true version? Occasionally Germaine himself shows up in Rapha's house commenting on the action unseen by the other characters.
The blending of the real and surreal is what makes this movie so interesting, and the dialogue absolutely crackles. The movie moves at breakneck speed, which is good because as we become voyeurs to the Rapha house (just like Germaine), we end up constantly curious as to where Claude goes next.
The movie's end deals with Claude looking for a way to end his story, and I got the sense that Ozon wasn't sure how to end his either. The end is a bit messy and even more surreal than anything hither-to, and feels a little strained in that regard.
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