The Trouble With Harry: Something is very wrong with this guy.

The less you read about this outstanding movie, a wicked cross-breed of psychological thriller and dark comedy, the better - you should simply go see it. But since I can't put a gun to your head in order to convince you, I will review it while going at painstaking lengths to carefully keep its secrets and surprises intact.

For starters, With a Friend Like Harry features one of the most nerve-wrecking openings I have ever seen: more breathless than a James Bond pre-credit sequence, tenser even than the classic opening interview in Blade Runner,the first minutes of Harry explore the claustrophobic and visceral horror of being stuck in an overheated car on the way to a summer family vacation with three screaming daughters. There's no air-conditioning, the mother is bickering and low on patience, the father so sick of the kids in the back he is on the brink of violence. Daddy, are we there yet? The children's relentless shrieks make these few minutes the most gut-wrenchingly uncomfortable time I've spent at the movies in a long while.

And from there on, Dominik Moll's darkly funny thriller just keeps getting better. At a rest stop, the unnerved father Michel (Laurent Lucas) runs into his mysterious high school friend who seems to remember him much better than he should. The friend, Harry, played with a perplexing mixture of kindness and menace by Sergi Lopez, is on his way nowhere in particular with his voluptuous sex-pot girlfriend Plum (Sophie Guillemin). The two offer the use of their air-conditioned Mercedes to ease the family's troubles, and then invite themselves along to the house in the countryside where Michel, his wife Claire (Mathilde Seigner) and the daughters are spending their vacation.

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This is the kind of stranger-with-a-secret setup where a lot of pleasure (and fear) derives from the puzzling out of the characters' motivations, and I certainly don't want to spoil anybody's enjoyment of the finely wrought plot. Deep wells, generous presents, teenage poetry, raw eggs, and flying monkeys all feature prominently, and Moll works overtime to give some of the more hackneyed props and conventions a fresh spin. Unlike most thrillers that explore a nifty new angle, "Harry" doesn't end in the same predictable confrontation once the veil of mystery is lifted - it manages to stay surprising and fresh throughout. Moll uncannily ratchets up the tension and weighs throwaway lines and minor details with big significance. His handling of the increasing threat is so crafty and executed with such joy that the effect is not simply fear, but a kind of giddy fun.

Much credit, apart from the writing and directing, goes to the actors. The characters, including Michel and Claire's daughters as well as Michel's aging parents, are complex, fascinating, and believable, and the ending opens the doors to a psychological reading of Michel and the film itself that is wholly satisfying.

With a Friend Like Harry... opens on Friday, April 20. Directed by Dominik Moll. Starring Laurent Lucas, Sergi Lopez, Mathilde Seigner, Sophie Guillemin. A Miramax Zoe Release.