(Jonathan Demme, 2002, USA/France, 104 minutes)

Mon Dieu! Someone shot the piano player breathless! I'm choosing The Truth About Charlie, the 2002 remake of the Audrey Hepburn/Cary Grant romantic thriller Charade. In it, Thandiwe Newton and Mark Wahlberg run delirious circles around the "City of Love" where cops are robbers, robbers are cops, and nothing--and no one--is exactly as it seems. With his globalized update, direct Jonathan Demme (The Silence of the Lambs, Stop Making Sense) weaves a tangled web between a nascent digital era, Stanley Donen's Hitchcock-lite 1963 original, and the contemporaneous French New Wave. (Don't miss appearances by Agnès Varda, Charles Aznavour, and even Anna Karina singing a Serge Gainsbourg song.) As charmingly wonky and woozily romantic as the original classic, The Truth About Charlie is an undersung home run from one of cinema’s most creative and humane masters.

Chosen by Joshua Ray, The Take-Up Podcast Host, as part of the “Critics Are Stupid” series. Be sure to listen to the podcast episode wherein it is discussed, expected to drop on February 27.

Co-presented with The Take-Up.