Francois Truffaut admired the work of Alfred Hitchcock. This wasn't always evident in his own work -- unlike Brian De Palma for example, Truffaut worked in other genres and had a style all his own -- but he wasn't above making an occasional thriller in the Hitchcockian vein. His last film, Confidentially Yours, is just such an homage. It was a cross, actually, between a Hitchcockian thriller and film noir. It was filmed in black and white, which accentuates the nightmarish predicament of the characters and the decadent world they inhabit. Like many of Hitchcock's films, the premise is built around a man wanted for murder, trying to establish his innocence. But there's a twist: maybe he's not really innocent. This is a question the heroine asks herself more than once. But maybe she isn't innocent either. I'm not spoiling anything by toying with these possibilities: these are among the first questions we ask ourselves once the set-up becomes clear.

Though it never quite builds up the suspense that Hitchcock's thrillers do, Confidentially Yours is nevertheless an entertaining trip through a fantastically perilous world of shady motels, closed doors, and mysterious figures in the night.