In spite of the title ,the movie has nothing to do with Tennessee Williams or Elia Kazan .
Gaby cannot stay alone ; she's afraid of the dark ,of her nightmares which come to haunt her at night .One can wonder,however, whether she spends the whole movie out in the sticks ,in an isolated house .When her boyfriend -who is and isn't all at once,she wants him only to keep her company- , leaves her (he wants to have sex with her and she gets on his nerves),she's completely on her own .She's afraid of the daylight ,in those peaceful forests ,where danger might wait for her behind a bush ;at night when she gets back to her home, it's worse :may an intruder be in the place? So she goes to her one horse town's café where she picks up a man who believes it's his lucky day whereas he actually becomes some bodyguard who watches over her sleep .
The feminists may not agree, claiming women are often depicted as cowards ,but the director is a woman ;besides the character portrayed by Lolita Chammah is throughly credible ;people afraid of everything do exist ,and not only women of course.Too bad the director did not try to explain this pathologic fear (unless the pointless short scene with the shrink counts)sometimes deep-rooted in childhood .
Men in the pub are no longer at hand ,because they know why Gaby" wants " them;so she has to find another protector ;as luck would have it she meets the biggest bearded misanthropist who has walked the earth who lives in a hut in front of a desirable castle ;he's the warden ,but he never enters the place.
However ,he might be the right choice,because he does not seem interested in sex ,which is fine with Gaby .
Gaby is not alone anymore and she tries to follow the man (Benjamin Biolay ) here ,there and everywhere ;but his walks through the country look more like an assault course ;actually it seems that her companion wants to educate her,to help her dominate her misgivings ...We would like to learn more from him,why he became such a hermit.
The answer is at the end ,but the average viewer has guessed it well before the "unexpected " conclusion ;this ending is really the easy way out.
That said ,it's an original film, off the beaten track ;it's not one of those ponderous crude comedies which pullulate on the French scene.It's not an in-depth psychological case study either.But it's often enjoyable,and the autumnal landscapes help all along the way.
