finally, someone gets what they deserve

in the majority of gritty, uncomfortable, foreign thrillers ('13 tzameti' and 'the vanishing' come to mind), characters do not get what they deserve. bad guys escape with large sums of money, good guys are left to deal with the aftermath or get buried alive. well, just in 'the vanishing'.

i've meant to see 'alias betty' for several years now, but my difficulty in tracking it down was due to the fact that when i first heard of it playing at the irish film centre when i lived in dublin, it was using a much more accurate translation of it's french title -- "betty fisher and other stories" ("betty fisher et autres histoires"). i fail to see why american titles for foreign films have to be consistently dumbed down, often until the meaning is completely obscured (i.e. "nightcap" for "merci pour le chocolat"). "alias betty" puts one in mind of a 1950's women's prison shocker.

whatever you call it, this 2002 film is a nifty version of a ruth rendell novel, "the tree of hands". starring sandrine kiberlain, ever sad-eyed and long-necked as in "apres vous', and 'un héros très discret', has a best-selling debut novel, a quiet toddler, an absent ex-husband, and a mother out of your worst nightmare, played with cheerful selfishness by nicole garcia. the film's major drawback is the fact that you must perpetually suspend your disbelief -- would a woman whose mother stabbed her hand to a train doorway as a child really invite her to stay for a few months? would a woman whose mental illness had supposedly improved really see nothing out of the ordinary about nicking a young child to replace the grandson who'd died three weeks earlier? would that many men really be after mathilde seigner?

but as long as you can convince yourself that these events are feasible, the film is highly enjoyable. tense, but not too tense. in the middle of all the craziness, there are surprising moments of comedy, and the best part is that, bar the exception of one or two characters, everyone gets exactly what he or she deserves. it may not be nice to think that just desserts can involve such nasty things for some people, but you do feel a quiet sense of satisfaction when they happen.

one more thing -- i have to say that the artsy direction and half-hearted division of the film into the stories of different characters served only as a distraction to a story that was complex enough to begin with.