Movies / Following (1998)

Following is a wickedly clever story of how a young man's obsession with following people leads him into a dark underworld. Bill, the unlikely hero, is a marginalized but intriguing Everyman who follows strangers at random on the street. When Cobb, a man Bill has been following, catches him in the act, Bill is drawn into Cobb's world of breaking into flats and prying into the personal lives of their victims. In Cobb, Bill finds a strange companion, part mentor, part confessor and part evil twin. With an ingenious structure that involves flashforwards and doubling back, the film tests our knowledge and understanding just as the protagonist is being duped into an elaborate triple-cross. This first feature heralds in Christopher Nolan a promising new talent to the indie film scene.