Möbius (2013) User Reviews

Beautifully filmed, some surprising twists

[dl-669-206981 · 7/10 · 25 April 2013]

We went to see Mobius on it's first evening showing in our local movie theater. We were pleasantly surprised by an interesting spy movie with contemporary plot.

First the good parts: The movie is filmed very very well - with excellent editing and beautiful outside shots in Monaco and Moskva. The acting is excellent and the plot has more than a few twists and enough mystery to keep you interested.

The only thing I was sure, was that being Russian - no one would be happy in the end and without spoiling the plot - you will not be disappointed from that aspect.

The not so good parts The movie is a bit slow moving and the dialog could have been crisper. The co-star's English was noticeably French-accented and not American which took away from the credibility of the character. The director could have done a better job on the Americans; the American CIA characters were stereotypical and portrayed in a way that I imagine many Europeans visualize Americans.

Things that aren't suppose to happen, do in this thriller

[JohnRayPeterson · 7/10 · 4 July 2013]

The cinematography and editing were a delight for this movie genre so I wanted to bring that up first before it gets drowned by everything else; there is so much going on and so much to follow one's attention is easily focused elsewhere.

I wasn't familiar with director Eric Rochant's work and I have to admit I was most pleased with this film, I would not hesitate considering other of his future projects, especially if they are in similar genre and have actors I'm familiar with. In Möbius there were plenty of such actors; we all remember Jean Dujardin for his Oscar winning performance in The Artist. I also liked him in 'Les Infidèles"/The Players. You may remember Cécile De France for her performance in the absolutely delightful 'Le Gamin au Vélo '/The Kid with a Bike; she has had other notable roles in the highly charged 'Haute Tension'/Switchblade Romance and in Mesrine (parts 1 and 2) to name a few worth considering. Then there's Tim Roth, who needs no introduction, John Lynch and Émilie Duquenne who I expect will have more and better roles in the future, if I go by what I've read about her and saw in this movie. All the other supporting actors did a fine job as well.

The plot is not easy to follow or to explain for that matter, so if you're going to see this movie, you can't afford to miss much of the dialogue. Moïse, played by Dujardin, is an FSB agent on a joint French and Russian task force aimed at bringing down Ivan Rostovsky, played by Roth, a sinfully wealthy businessman who does more than dabble in international money laundering on a vast scale. Of course, Rostovsky's status also means he controls Russian politicians and that is the focus of FSB high ranking director Cherkachin's, played by Vladimir Menshov, real mission for Moïse. Moïse is loyal to Cherkachin first and foremost; the latter only has aspiration to gain the FSB top job and he has different plans for Rostovsky's influence. Hence, Moïse has a double role. The CIA has planted Alice (Cécile De France), a forced collaboration as she is not a CIA agent but rather a top finance expert, in a position where she can infiltrate Rostovsky's organization and set up him and his whole organization for their own agenda, all the while she seems to collaborate with the joint task force. I was astonished that the plot managed to have both the CIA and the new head of FSB get what they wanted out of the mission(s), but it did. You'll have to watch the movie to discover how.

Both Moïse and Alice are driven characters, smart and good at what they do. The very last thing either is suppose to do is get involved in an affair, let alone with each other, but they do. It becomes more than either wanted or anticipated. I really enjoyed how that played out even as the very last scene confirms our suspicion that their affair was more than any expected.

I saw the original French version which had the Russian dialogues sub-titled but not the English ones, as those were instead dubbed; and noticeably, all of Roth's dialogues were dubbed. Perhaps his delivery in French of a Russian accent did not fare well with the focus groups, I can only guess, but the whole dubbing aspect of the movie did not sit well with me. I can't figure why the producers did not go with sub-titles here; my conclusion is that it aimed for a European audience much more than an American one.

I recommend the movie for how it follows a steady path despite the complexity of the plot and love sub-plot, but I do caution that you have to work for the pay-off satisfaction. You may very well think when it's over that Dujardin and De France make an ideal on screen couple and you would be right.

A bit dejected for a spy thriller

[BeneCumb · 7/10 · 2 February 2014]

For a change, it is eventful to watch non-Hollywood type of thriller, with more mind-twists and less chases or killings. Romantic angle is usually proper as well, especially among the French and by talented actors like Jean Dujardin and Cécile de France, but the film in question became too wistful and tensions faded away even where appropriate... True, the chemistry between them was pleasant and erotic scenes added "French touch" but - as mentioned - one could easily forget the background with at least 3 secret services striving for getting their aims fulfilled.

Moreover, the story became too complex as well at times, but what I liked was multiple solutions in the ending, and the very final scene provides food for thought. The use of Russian actors was good (as it is a Russian-French film), however, the contrast of pure Russian spoken by them and that by Dujardin and Tim Roth (depicting Russian gangster Rostovsky) became too obvious.

Nevertheless, if you like calm spy films, then Möbius is more than an entertainment.

fascinating performances by two great french actors

[rightwingisevil · 3 July 2013]

Actress Cécile De France and Oscar Best Actor 2011 Winner Jean Dujardin both played in the French film "Möbius (2013)". Their love making scene in this film just looked so realistically beautiful. Cécile De France played the heroine who enjoyed sex to the extreme with her subtle facial reactions responding to every movement, while Jean Dujardin focused on her face silently yet so intensely. The scene played so serenely beautiful, showing the big difference from a bad porno film.

The whole process from when he sat in the night club spotting her came in with Tim Roth, to she approached him after she spotted him looking at her, then to the sudden return after she left, then to the bar scene where they drank and talked, then to the bed making love. the whole segment was one of the best directed and performed what a good movie should and could be.

By viewing this almost lifelike performance in an unreal visual drama, you would learn how really good actors could perform, especially those French actors.

Extraordinaire

[kosmasp · 7/10 · 30 September 2013]

The performances that is! A good story, that gets a bit slowed down by some flashbacks. Dujardin and De France are a pair that ignites more than just a fire. And it translates to the screen. As the director was saying in the interview, the main thing was to make that relationship work and it does work.

The story with an international cast and many languages spoken (english, french, Russian ...) might feel overloaded at times, but it still works because of the actors involved in it. The fact you are involved with the characters only heightens the tension that the movie portrays. Not really that many action scenes (one fight scene in particular stands out), but the thrill of it still works.

Could have been better

[nhermida · 6/10 · 15 September 2019]

Although the story and acting is good, the emphasis on prolonged sex scenes is gratuitous.

Too complicated for its own good.

[shawneofthedead · 5/10 · 16 January 2014]

It doesn't happen often, but once in a while, it's possible for a film to be both under- and over-cooked at the same time. Writer-director Eric Rochant's Möbius is a case in point. The double-crossed romance at its heart flirts with being fascinating but doesn't quite get there, buried as it is within the conspiracy-laden, high-stakes world of big business and covert intelligence.

While monitoring the offshore activities of crooked Russian tycoon Ivan Rostrovsky (Tim Roth), Russian secret agent Gregory Lioubov (Jean Dujardin) talent-spots Alice Redmond (Cecile De France), a brilliant international banker so spectacular she was banned from working in America after the Lehman Bros scandal. Not realising that Alice is already working with the CIA, Gregory directs his team to recruit and use her to get closer to Rostrovsky. Inevitably, secrets and conspiracies pile up, with Gregory only complicating matters when he stumbles into a forbidden relationship with Alice.

There are a few moments and ideas that shine through Möbius, no doubt the ones that most inspired Rochant to construct a script around them. These come mainly in the relationship between Alice and Gregory – or Moses, as she knows him. Their connection is under-written, suggested more through soul-shuddering orgasms than what is technically in the script. Nevertheless, Dujardin and de France just about make it work, whether Gregory is brazenly deceiving his colleagues to answer a call from Alice or they're sharing a final, quietly devastating scene together.

But their efforts are let down by an overly complicated plot, one that feels as if it doesn't make much sense even when all is revealed. The motivations of every agency involved are murky at best. The CIA comes off the worst, its agents lurking stupidly through a handful of scenes as their ties with Alice ebb and flow in quite mysterious fashion. The Americans in the cast must also grapple with the unwieldy, soapy chunks of dialogue they're given. As a result, the film loses steam when it should gain tension.

A Möbius strip, as a character explains quite late in the film, is a deceptively simple phenomenon. Half-twist a strip of paper, fasten the two ends together, et voila: something utterly simple rendered impossibly complicated – a never-ending loop, a two-dimensional model with only one surface. Rochant meant for the strip to be a metaphor for the dilemma in which his characters find themselves. It's rather appropriate, though perhaps not quite how he intended it, that the strip also serves as an apt metaphor for the entire film.

Interesting Intrigues, Very Good Composition ("bad" rating, IMDb WTH?)

[z_a_g · 9/10 · 4 August 2013]

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.

I am indifferent.

[petarmatic · 5/10 · 17 March 2014]

What I liked about this film is acting and cinematography. Nice setting of Monaco and Moscow. The plot, well was there one? Both principal actors are outstanding. They make this film worthwhile watching, otherwise I would of scrapped it off.

Langauages nicely mix. I like that they used French, Russian and English on equal terms.

The love story is not that probable, but I guess for the sake of the film we have to endure a lot of things.

All in all if you want to see some good cinematography and acting, this is a film for you. I would discards the plot, it really was not that interesting.

Way better than I expected

[monimm18 · 8/10 · 27 April 2019]

This movie is a hidden gem. The plot is great, with interesting twists, the acting is definitely great, it's thrilling and suspenseful without the use of any explosions or bloody scenes, it has a sex scene that manages to be spectacular without any loud sexual vocalizations or nudity display, and it ends up tugging at your heart quite a bit in the end. Also, I never thought Jean Dujardin to be sexy. Well, he is in this movie. There are some people claiming the plot is confusing, but I think it's the fact that there's a lot going on and the subtitles might make it hard to follow. You might have to rewind certain scenes or rewatch it to get some key details. Or maybe not. I learned enough French to be able to understand most of the dialogue and the subtitles helped too, so I didn't have any problems, but non-French speakers might. Either way, trust me, it's a very entertaining flick.

This is a movie for a select group of people. For me it was a little too slow and predictable for me to fully get into.

[cosmo_tiger · 5/10 · 14 April 2014]

"I can't steal but I can still seduce." Alice (De France) is a trader who is caught up in a deadly ring of money laundering. When a powerful Russian finds her and forces her to help him she meets Moïse (Dujardin), a Russian operative. Her and Moïse strike up a fast relationship both trying to hide who they really are from each other, but you can only hide the truth for so long. This is a hard movie to review, mainly because the plot was a little hard to follow, for me at least. It was really just a movie about a type of espionage triangle and you begin to question everyone's motives. It was pretty slow moving and went back and forth between french and English so if you aren't a big foreign movie fan that is your warning. This is a movie for a select group of people. For me it was a little too slow and predictable for me to fully get into. Overall, nothing that I would rush and see or see again. I give this a C+.

Brilliant, intelligent.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9 March 2013]

That's the very first time since THREE BURIALS, back in 2005, that Europacorp Productions - Luc Besson's crap factory - give us such an interesting film. Of, course, many things are very hard to follow in this movie maybe not anyone could be pleased to watch without a little boredom. It deserves to be seen at least three or four times before getting the very unusual lines of this amazing feature. A tale of double cross, undercover mission, mixed with a romantic spy thriller topic. This movie also gives us a bitter sweet taste in the mouth. It could have been with more action sequences, although. But after all...

The ending doesn't spoil the entire film.

A good piece of work.

I am disappointed that I could not get into this film.

[kusaj-47895 · 3/10 · 8 November 2019]

At all. Period. I t as not the language. It wasn't the actors, locations or cinematography. I guess I would have to blame the cat and mouse game of a story. Everything else follows suit.

Very good

[soren-91 · 8/10 · 30 April 2017]

This movie is too good for bad ratings. Someone ought to change it. That said, I had a some trouble understanding the plot, because I missed the first ten minutes. This only added to the excitement though, because the movie has some interesting twists. A real spy movie, with beautiful sexy actors and adequate photography. Nice surprise on rainy day. Don't forget candy.

Great photography of Monaco and Mokba

[bshaef · 3/10 · 21 December 2020]

And that's all I care to say about this molasses slow movie. Never could figure out who was doing what to who and I really didn't care because I was enjoying my TV supper which was much better than Mobius.

Drama and love story more than James Bond

[matthew_hoh · 8/10 · 5 September 2019]

This is an intricate bittersweet drama and love story much more than it is an action/adventure or thriller. The pacing is methodical and consistent while the production value is quite high, with excellent cinematography and really well laid out interior and exterior scenes. It paints a captivating portrait of high risk banking and espionage just as it does Monaco and Moscow.

The acting is good with a well rounded cast. There was one odd and weird sequence of close up facial shots, but other than that I found the film quite compelling and even moving, with few flaws.

If you are looking for explosions, car chases and gun fights look elsewhere. Watch this film if you want to be immersed in a human story draped in exotic locales and professions.

Excellent Spy Movie

[berilsonmez-1 · 9/10 · 13 February 2014]

The movie differentiating itself from cheesy spy movies to giving main idea is espionage not a thing to brag about as we have seen on classic spy movies. It is simply being humble with excellent planning patiently and sacrifice. There is a significant romance which makes movie tender. when you think that you are winning actually you are losing it badly. Movie is full of class act and acting brilliance with good actors.

Mobius is a kind of strip also Mobius or Moebius, is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.

"You think people are working for you but actually you are working for them"

is this really fiction

[ecd-490-372156 · 10/10 · 15 July 2013]

Excellent spy movie, making interesting parallels with actual drama of Russian politics of last decade. I would never expect it to come from France. Although Tim Roth doesn't look much like Russian, he makes good job. Additionally, the mixture of French and Russian actors is brilliant. One would wonder whether this story has some real roots related to internal affairs of Russian politicians and secret services. If you change some names and places, big part of it start to look pretty much realistic actually. I would prefer it to be a fiction. Otherwise, looks too dramatic and scary sometimes. In some parts the movie could be a bit more dynamic, but it looks more like a style than flaw.

The Spy Who Duped Me

[lavatch · 8/10 · 14 July 2019]

"Möbius" is an intricately plotted thriller that is a combination of a James Bond film and a John LeCarré spy saga. While the narrative takes place in the present, the film has the feeling of a Cold War saga.

The story is complicated by a large set of characters working in factions. But the focal point is the financial wizard named Alice Radmond, who has the skills for analyzing data that the various groups desire. Another challenging part of the film is that the characters are speaking in English, French, and Russian.

The pivotal point of the drama is when the Russian FSB agent Gregory Lyubov and Alice Radmond fall in love. That adds a new dynamic to the various forces competing for the information that Alice possesses. Both Russian and American intelligence agencies are working behind the scenes to control Alice. But the film slowly turns into a love story!

The acting was terrific with a wide assortment of sleazy characters to complement the two romantic leads The film moved from France to Russia to America to Belgium for a wide range of settings. As we follow the action, it becomes clear that Gregory and Alice may working at cross-purposes with one another. The main question becomes whether or not someone will be caught holding bag as "the spy who duped me."

My kind of spy movie.

[mikejade-35453 · 8/10 · 2 September 2019]

If I understood French it would have been better for me. It was a little difficult to follow but by the end I got it. French and Russian improved the movie.

Language

[mmcpherson666 · 8/10 · 7 August 2019]

Petarmatic - "Would've" is a conjugation of "would have". "Would of" has no meaning. 'Common mistake. 'No charge.

complex yet full of plot holes, and if you watch on prime you will have trouble with subtitles

[random-70778 · 12 July 2021]

First the subtitles issue. Most people will be watching this on streaming. There is a major problem with stream versions. My conversational French is ok. I don't know any Russian. On Amazon prime this film has hard coded subtitles, meaning they are in the video stream and you are unable to turn them off -- and most importantly -- adjust background. The subtitles are white with no background, so in all but the darkest of scenes they are at least half unreadable. About 15% of the spoken dialogue in this film is English, about 15% Russian, and about 70% French. Unless you are fluent in all, and in the case of French already know the terminology in international banking and finance, you are going to have trouble following certain plot lines.

Now in terms of the film itself, there are just too many plot holes. The complexity the script writers seem to have intended comes off as a forced/artificial affectation. And the unrealistic nature of it creates narrative problems. In other worlds the more you pay attention the more you realize the plot is a mess and characters actions ridiculous.