TV-MOVIES
The French film “Nothing To Hide” is a Netflix hit and it’s about a group of friends at a dinner party who play a game in which they all must leave their cell phones on a table and share the content of the messages they receive. However, the way the film then chooses to wrap up its story is a very deliberate one that might need some explanation.
Every one of the film's seven assembled pals turns out to be hiding something including bitter marital struggles, affairs, and sexual internet flings. As the movie wraps up, these revelations prompt the characters to make a series of momentous decisions until the movie's final reveal hits.
The entirety of the plot, with all its twists and turns and slaps and fights, is shown to be just a what-if scenario, a glimpse into a hypothetical world in which the characters go through. In reality, however, the characters of "Nothing to Hide" quickly realize the game is a bad idea and have a normal, pleasant evening together, with nothing ruined.
Many of the conflicts in the film can be categorized as petty, superfluous interpersonal conflicts that we'd all rather not go through and are just fine not ever being made privy to. "Nothing to Hide" comes less from masks removed and trusts betrayed, and more from the old routine of human beings obsessing over problems that only exist in their own heads.
The film concludes with its characters Vincent and Marie disagreeing about whether or not they should play the game after all. Marie laments about the fun they could have had, while Vincent's stance on the matter points toward the film's ultimate thesis: that relationships, be they friendly or romantic, are only functional if they're a bit opaque.
A lot of the problems in the movie aren't even real problems, just inevitable consequences of butting in on other people's privacy. However, some of the conflicts are serious and the film leaves us with the question of which truths are better left alone, and which ones are better being directly addressed.