Intimate Strangers

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One way of thinking of intimacy is the baring of one's self - to be completely open and naked before another. Such intimacy is not easy. It requires a level of trust that the other person will not take advantage of that which we reveal of ourselves.

In Patrice Laconte’s film, Intimate Strangers, Anne, a young woman with a troubled marriage, makes a wrong turn in the hallway as she goes to her first appointment with a psychiatrist. Instead of the doctor's office, she ends up in a tax advisor's office. Not knowing her mistake, she proceeds to tell her troubles to William. The stunned William lets her go on with this mistake. Then they set an appointment for the next week. Even after the mistake is made known, she continues to come talk to William rather than the doctor down the hall.

William is a lonely man who lives and works in the same apartment he was born in. His nights consist of a TV dinner alone. His tie is always perfectly tied. His desk is always neat. He has compartmentalized his life. It's comfortable, but unfulfilling. When Anne shows up, his world begins to open up.

This kind of mistaken identity is rife for comedy, and at times that is where the film goes. But intimacy is serious business, and as the story progresses, the comedy begins to fall into the background. Week by week Anne opens up a little bit more. We begin to hear very uncomfortable things about her marriage and her life. More, we begin to wonder if her story is even true. Is she really married? Was there a mistake that first visit, or was it planned? We start seeing ways that Anne manipulates William.

The tension begins to mount in an almost Hitchcockian manner as the story goes on. (This tension is helped along by a superb score by Pascal Estéve.) We really aren't sure whom we should fear or fear for. Who is a victim in all this? Anne? Anne's husband? William? We begin to sense that something dangerous is taking place.

The real danger is the intimacy. William and Anne begin to know each other as people rarely get to know one another. Anne and William become entwined in this ongoing intimacy. Each needs to be set free in some way, but to find their freedom, they must bare their souls to themselves and one another. Such baring of souls leaves one totally vulnerable. In that vulnerability, they are able to find their freedom.

It isn't easy being intimate with another. Even in marriage, there are often ways that we hide bits of ourselves from those we are closest to. But it costs us to hide those things.

Intimacy with God is also difficult. Even if we are already fully known by God, we still seek to hide our deepest selves. But it is only by opening ourselves and being ready to stand naked before God that we will finally find the freedom and peace of God.