The story is mainly set in Monaco, where economy and national/international cabals intertwine. Alice (Cécile de France) works for a Russian Bank and as a mole for the CIA. Moïse's (Jean Dujardin) FSB (Russian Intelligence) Team recruits her without knowing her CIA-affiliation. CIA and FSB both want to get in on the bank's founder Rostovsky and his economic/criminal activities. In the thick of it, Moïse get's too close to Alice and falls in love with her. It gets more and more complicated, and in the end, Rostovsky is not that important anymore as the whole Monaco mission evolves to a standoff between CIA and FSB with the main characters as double/triple agents and lovers who betray each other unwillingly.
Plot: Really interesting idea - a plot that one would envision as close to the real mechanism behind actual intelligence affairs (current whistle-blower affairs, Cold War affairs). If you are interested in spy affairs and you can live without action scenes, this is your movie. My rating of nine shows my enthusiasm.
Below some further details, light spoilers and criticism.
Script: Five minutes in, and one knows the parameters and the scenes keep rolling and rolling – every scene is important and adds something new.
Only the sex scenes seemed to be out of rhythm, as enchanting as they were.
The metaphor of the Möbius strip is fitting for the intrigues and the characters becoming double/triple (maybe even quadruple) agents. The scene in which the metaphor is laid out to the viewer is a bit clumsy (and it had to involve a corpulent CIA agent, weird).
The scenes with Alice's father are a bit forced. All in all, the script is powerful, compact – really good.
Actors: Cécile de France IS Alice – beautiful and strong-willed as the script describes her.
Jean Dujardin is really good, always giving us a hint of a restless soul, a man adopted in his youth by the KGB. The scene of Alice's and Moïse's first face-to-face-encounter is an unbelievable good play of gazes. The atmosphere in the sex scenes created by the actors is wonderful.
Tim Roth plays convincingly a Russian tycoon who imitates Cal Lightman from the TV show "Lie to Me". I like Tim Roth.
Aleksey Gorbunov is a Russian mobster who accidentally stepped on the set and was cast as Rostovsky's security. Brilliant move from casting department!
The other actors do a good job as intelligence officials and agents. Saïd is interesting. Maybe Émilie Dequenne as Russian agent does a bit too much to show the audience she knows of Alice's and Moïse's relation (but that could be also one of the few "mis-directions").
Direction/photography: Beautiful images of Monaco, nice opening shot. Interesting angles.
The murder scene in the elevator scene is almost the only action scene. The camera and direction underline the rawness and brutality and the "finishing move" is delivered in "Drive"-like coolness.
Really good ideas of the director like the dry chase scenes which have a nice realistic touch.
Sometimes the character's are on the edge of becoming caricatures and oppose the otherwise realistic approach to the story-line (mainly Gorbunov and Roth that fill their roles nearly too good (?).
Apart from that, the direction/photography completed and sometimes even seemed to enhance the efforts of the actors (see first encounter of Alice and Moïse, sex scenes, interaction of the side characters).
Music: Maybe a bit too much Don Cossack Choir (inspired) music. Several really good electronic beats that fit the drive of the movie (and also seem to be influenced by Winding Refn's movie "Drive").
All in all, "Möbius" is a round package and gives the viewer a good time and something to think about.
Plot: Really interesting idea - a plot that one would envision as close to the real mechanism behind actual intelligence affairs (current whistle-blower affairs, Cold War affairs). If you are interested in spy affairs and you can live without action scenes, this is your movie. My rating of nine shows my enthusiasm.
Below some further details, light spoilers and criticism.
Script: Five minutes in, and one knows the parameters and the scenes keep rolling and rolling – every scene is important and adds something new.
Only the sex scenes seemed to be out of rhythm, as enchanting as they were.
The metaphor of the Möbius strip is fitting for the intrigues and the characters becoming double/triple (maybe even quadruple) agents. The scene in which the metaphor is laid out to the viewer is a bit clumsy (and it had to involve a corpulent CIA agent, weird).
The scenes with Alice's father are a bit forced. All in all, the script is powerful, compact – really good.
Actors: Cécile de France IS Alice – beautiful and strong-willed as the script describes her.
Jean Dujardin is really good, always giving us a hint of a restless soul, a man adopted in his youth by the KGB. The scene of Alice's and Moïse's first face-to-face-encounter is an unbelievable good play of gazes. The atmosphere in the sex scenes created by the actors is wonderful.
Tim Roth plays convincingly a Russian tycoon who imitates Cal Lightman from the TV show "Lie to Me". I like Tim Roth.
Aleksey Gorbunov is a Russian mobster who accidentally stepped on the set and was cast as Rostovsky's security. Brilliant move from casting department!
The other actors do a good job as intelligence officials and agents. Saïd is interesting. Maybe Émilie Dequenne as Russian agent does a bit too much to show the audience she knows of Alice's and Moïse's relation (but that could be also one of the few "mis-directions").
Direction/photography: Beautiful images of Monaco, nice opening shot. Interesting angles.
The murder scene in the elevator scene is almost the only action scene. The camera and direction underline the rawness and brutality and the "finishing move" is delivered in "Drive"-like coolness.
Really good ideas of the director like the dry chase scenes which have a nice realistic touch.
Sometimes the character's are on the edge of becoming caricatures and oppose the otherwise realistic approach to the story-line (mainly Gorbunov and Roth that fill their roles nearly too good (?).
Apart from that, the direction/photography completed and sometimes even seemed to enhance the efforts of the actors (see first encounter of Alice and Moïse, sex scenes, interaction of the side characters).
Music: Maybe a bit too much Don Cossack Choir (inspired) music. Several really good electronic beats that fit the drive of the movie (and also seem to be influenced by Winding Refn's movie "Drive").
All in all, "Möbius" is a round package and gives the viewer a good time and something to think about.