Patrice Leconte's otherwise accomplished Intimate Strangers carries an albatross around its neck in the form of Ivan Maussion's score, which keeps insisting that it's a scary horror movie. It's not, although the premise has a certain tension: a young woman (Sandrine Bonnaire) pours her heart out to a complete stranger (Fabrice Luchini) under the false assumption that he's her new psychiatrist, a misunderstanding precipitated by his apartment's proximity to the real shrink's office and his own questionable hesitance in dispelling the illusion.

The man, William, is a dumpy tax attorney, consigned to a profitable if lonely existence at his father's hand-me-down business. The woman, Anna, is beautiful and less easily pegged: even after discovering the faux doctor's true identity, she returns for regular appointments, bringing with her ever-more-frightening tales of her domestic troubles, including her crippled husband's bizarre sexual hang-ups. William is attracted to her, but also perplexed enough to seek psychological treatment of his own.

This is a terrific set-up for the film to go in any number of directions. And, judging by the sub-Bernard Hermann swell that threatens to envelop every scene, it's headed into grim territory indeed. But Intimate Strangersisn't up to the lurid promise of its music or conspicuously sinister camera movements -- the resolution proves frustratingly tame, undermining the peril-fraught atmosphere of the early movements and subsequently rendering them first irritating and then irrelevant.

It's worth mentioning that both Bonnaire and Luchini do strong work, particularly Luchini, who not only holds his own against the eminently luminous actress, but also makes William interesting during the interludes between her appointments. It's a shame that a film this well made and acted can't warrant a recommendation, but the disparity between its lurid erotic-thriller trappings and ultimate narrative content is really too wide to reconcile.

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