Movies
[Fantasia ’15 Review] ‘Un Homme Idéal’: A Hitchcockian Masterpiece of Suspense!
Before watching Un Homme Idéal (A Perfect Man), grow your fingernails out a few days because those bastards will be bit down to the quick while watching this unbearably tense thriller. Starring up-and-coming French superstar Pierre Niney, the film vibes like Best Seller and The Talented Mr. Ripley filtered through Hitchcock. Exploring how far one man will go to achieve literary stardom, Yann Gozlan’s film throws one devilish twist after the next, achieving an insane level of suspense until its final heartbreaking scene.
25-year-old Mathieu (Niney) wants nothing more in the world than to be a renowned, respected author. Despite cracking away on his laptop keys every day after working at his uncle’s moving company, he’s just not that good. While cleaning a recently deceased man’s apartment, destiny literally falls into Mathieu’s lap. He finds a leather-bound manuscript chronicling the man’s experiences in the Algerian War. And the writing is rich, soulful, and moving – everything Mathieu’s isn’t.
He makes the fateful decision to bend his integrity over the writing desk and has his way with it. Typing up the dead man’s journal and submitting it under his own name, Mathieu becomes the new sensation of French literature. “Black Sand” is a massive hit and Mathieu is thrust into fame and fortune. He even gets his dream girl, Alice (Ana Girardot), whose wealthy family welcomes Mathieu with open arms.
Mathieu’s façade begins to crumble when Alice’s old flame comes around. His father fought in Algiers and he’s very wary of Mathieu’s apparent expertise. How does he know so much about the war and the atmosphere of a place he’s never been? While Mathieu sweats, his agent is hounding him for the second book. But Mathieu is still the wannabe writer and while he’s good at spending his advance money, the page remains blank.
And then the phone calls start. Someone knows Mathieu’s secret.
Like in films such as Quicksand and A Simple Plan, Mathieu has to commit increasingly diabolical acts to sustain his new life. He’ll do anything to preserve his new image. Niney, who resembles a baby bird, delivers a performance dripping with nuance. Mathieu’s a man consumed with anguish and Niney encompasses this torture in his tiny, quivering frame. His lies and deeds weigh him down so much that by the end of the film, he looks like an entirely different person.
It’s a truly brilliant performance and Gozlan does an incredible job playing with our sympathies. We shouldn’t be rooting for Mathieu to get away, but I found myself doing just that several times. Along with the script, a lot of that has to do with Niney’s gripping performance. From the cinematography to the score, Un Homme Idéal is a modern thriller masterpiece that tightens the vice with each scene. It’s layering of suspense displays a genuine expertise of form and formula, but never feels predictable. The final scene, which features zero dialogue, is absolutely crushing. Even if you do see the end coming, Niney’s subtlety will break your heart.
Un Homme Idéal had its Canadian premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Here’s hoping it gets international distribution ASAP.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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