THERE'S SOMETHING (A BIT WEIRD) ABOUT 'HARRY'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

Director Dominick Moll has been winning a lot of favorable comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock for his new movie, ``With a Friend Like Harry ...,'' which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

It's easy to see why. In ``Harry,'' chance meetings and ordinary circumstances become portals to unspeakable horror, in much the same way they did in Hitch's ``Strangers on a Train'' and ``Shadow of a Doubt.''

``Harry'' isn't as good as either of those films, but it's still an enjoyably creepy thriller that owes as much to novelist Patricia Highsmith as it does to Hitchcock. Highsmith, who wrote ``Strangers on a Train'' as well as the Tom Ripley books, was a master at building suspense from character observation and, as is implied by the movie's title, ``Harry'' is about a friendship that turns into something else entirely.

Of course, moral fluidity was a Highsmith trademark, too, and it's one reason a lot of people are wild about ``Harry.'' The movie begins, quite brilliantly, by showing us scenes from a nightmare family vacation. Michel (Laurent Lucas) and Claire (Mathilde Seigner) and their three young, impatient, whining daughters are driving in a scorchingly hot car through the French countryside to the family's rundown summer home.

While washing his hands and face at a rest stop, Michel runs into an old classmate, Harry (Sergi Lopez). Michel barely remembers Harry. But Harry most certainly remembers Michel, ably recounting the most minute details of Michel's life, right down to a word-for-word rendition of a silly, sexual poem Michel wrote for the school's literary magazine.

Harry's behavior is odd, yes, but Michel accepts his generous offer to drive the kids in his air-conditioned Mercedes for the remainder of the trip. Harry is living off the family trust, traveling with his shapely, but dim, girlfriend Plum (Sophie Guillemin). Once they're at the home, Harry encamps and begins to extend his generosity to other areas of his old friend's life, helping around the vacation house and buying them a brand-new, air-conditioned SUV.

Naturally, everything is not as it seems, and Moll, a German-born director who has been working in France for the past few years, deftly begins to turn the screws. We see Harry take some rather drastic steps on Michel's behalf in the name of convenience. And Michel reacts passively, apparently emasculated by Harry's hedonism. (Harry boasts of eating a raw egg every time he makes love to Plum; it seems every time Michel goes to the kitchen, he finds Harry downing a raw egg.)

The homoerotic undercurrents between Harry and Michel brings us back to ``Strangers on a Train,'' and the enthusiasm Robert Walker brought to his friendship with Farley Granger in that 1951 classic. Moll, who co-wrote ``Harry'' with Gilles Marchand, displays a droll, dark humor and an adroit facility for male characterization.

Had he spent a bit more time on delineating the movie's women and reining in the action in its final act (where events turn silly rather than suspenseful), all those lofty comparisons to the masters would be entirely valid.

``WITH A FRIEND LIKE HARRY ...''

(Rated R: strong language, off-screen violence, brief nudity)

The stars: Sergi Lopez, Laurent Lucas.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Dominick Moll. Screenplay by Moll and Gilles Marchand. Released by Miramax Films.

Running time: One hour, 57 minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills; Laemmle's Monica in Santa Monica.

Our rating: Three stars

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The beautiful - and very married - Claire (Mathilde Seigner) becomes an object of obsession to her husband's strange friend, Harry (Sergi Lopez), in ``With a Friend Like Harry ...''