We love watching liars on our TVs. Think about it: Even a network procedural like the new Matlock becomes more interesting because the main character is hiding something. In a new French psychological thriller, a woman insinuates herself into a group of survivors of the Bataclan terrorist attack in Paris. She claims she was there, and has a friend in the hospital. But neither is true.
Opening Shot: A room full of music posters. A woman puts on makeup and gets ready for a night out.
The Gist: It’s November 13, 2015. Christelle Blandin (Laure Calamy) is going on a date in Paris with a guy she met on Tinder. When she gets there, the man proposes they immediately go to her place, which takes Chris by surprise. After he leaves, she has some drinks but skips out on the bill by saying she’s going out for cigarettes and giving the bartender her empty purse as collateral.
She hears lots of sirens, and is told by police to get on the Metro and leave the area. On the Metro, she sees a woman in hysterics, saying she came from the Bataclan, a concert venue that came under attack by a group of terrorists. Alarmed, Chris calls her friend Vincent, whom she knew was seeing Eagles of Death Metal, the band that was playing that night.
At home, she tells her mother (Anne Benoit) that Vincent’s father posted on Facebook that he had been shot twice and was in the hospital in a coma. Chris’ mother doubts the source of the story, but Chris shows her the post.
Chris manages to somehow get into the ICU of the Georges Pompidou Hospital to see Vincent, but when she gets into the room and we see the bracelet of the man she’s crying over, the bracelet says his name is Philippe.
Chris starts seeing Twitter and other social media posts from people who survived the attack, and she joins Facebook groups for survivors and families, eventually finding Emilie (Annabelle Lengronne), the woman she saw on the Metro. They meet, and Chris tells the exhausted Emilie to rest and she’ll watch her young son. They get along great until the kid tells her mother about something Chris did.
But Chris keeps at it, giving her phone number to the Facebook group, and fielding DMs, texts and calls from survivors and families. When she meets with a group in person, Emilie, and two other members, Leon (Arieh Worthalter) and Miriam (Ava Baya), volunteer to accompany Chris the next time she visits “Vincent” in the ICU. Meanwhile, Chris’ mother kicks her out of the house, not wanting to go through her daughter’s delusions all over again.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Shows about pathological liars, like Breaking Bad, Lie To Me, Pretty Little Liars, etc., are always intriguing.
Our Take: The Confidante is intriguing because, instead of examining the Bataclan attack, it tells a story about someone who took advantage of its victims and families, for no other reason than to feel needed. It rides on the performance of Calmy, who makes Chris look credible even when we know that she’s lying to both the people she’s trying to help as well as herself.
Even though the show’s writers use the real life Bataclan attack as the show’s backdrop, the series is more about Chris and her delusions, and the writers don’t try to hide that she is in fact a pathological liar. As soon as she walks into the room of “Vincent” and hides the bracelet that says his name is Philippe, we know something is amiss. Also, Chris’ mother’s reaction to the news about Vincent was curious enough to make us know something was up.
The danger, of course, is using the Bataclan attack as a prop, when Chris could have become a confidante to people from various other mass tragedies. Perhaps the attack was used as the source for the story because of the Islamophobia that followed, or maybe even because it occurred at a rock concert. But what we hope is that the story examines the aftermath of that attack in a way that goes into specifics, even if Chris is lying her way through gaining the support of the victims and their families.
Sex and Skin: Chris is so supportive, she gives someone in the support group a bathroom hand job.
Parting Shot: After having been kicked out of her house, Chris applies for a victim’s assistance fund, and as she tells her lies to the police officer taking her report, she looks right into the camera.
Sleeper Star: Annabelle Lengronne is great as Emilie, mainly because her character actually was at the Bataclan, and her vulnerability in that regard comes through in her performance.
Most Pilot-y Line: Chris tries to use the “Oh, I forgot my wallet” gambit with a cab driver, who wasn’t buying it; he told her to dump her purse to prove she doesn’t have it. You’d think such a veteran liar would come up with something better.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Calamy’s performance as the delusional Chris makes The Confidante a very intriguing series. We just hope that the Bataclan attack is more of a factor in the show than just being the launching point for Chris’ lies.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.