New York's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema

I like that this film includes a good deal of interesting, amusing gender role reversal

The absurd exaggerations and the wild parishes of humor are completely original, never cruel, and attached to a physicality that is pure cinema.

It all works together to pay tribute to the tiny, all important, personality-building feelings that are so often forgotten.

Anna Dorval as the transplant's recipient, Dominique Blanc's surgeon, and Emmanuelle Seigner's turn as the mother of the donor are all note-perfect.

It is in the second half of Nocturama - which takes place in a department store by night - that Bertrand Bonello's prowess at showing us worlds closing in on themselves comes to full force.

Cotillard's face oscillates mysteriously between the past depicted on the screen and a woman of the present who tries to understand.

Frequently and not at all randomly, the film switches to colour, posing a charming riddle that reflects states of happiness or other kinds of intensity.

The tension between Philippe and his dad ultimately drives the film in ways that lead Salle to cut corners with other characters and leave it caught in the doldrums when Niney is absent.

Knudsen is magnetic as the film's relentlessly pounding heart and its easy to fall into step with her beat.