Who You Think I Am

At a time when social media fantasies have a habit of merging with harsh realities, this hypnotic psychological drama could not be more apposite.

Adapted from a novel by Camille Laurens, director Safy Nebbou and his co-writer Julie Peyr display Hitchcockian flair in teasing out the tale despite asking the audience to make some significant leaps of narrative faith.

Juliette Binoche proves again she is at the top of her game as Claire, a middle-aged professor and mother of two, whose husband (Charles Berling) has left her for a younger woman. She reasons that she should be able to take up with younger men without being judged as a “cougar".

When her relationship with her piece of rough Ludo (Guillaume Gouix) founders, she takes up with his more sensitive friend Alex (François Civil) - except she does so by inventing a fake online profile as a younger blonde named Clara and proceeds to stalk him.

Soon the string of messages morph into an erotic session of phone sex. An increasingly confused Alex becomes convinced the invisible female could be exactly the right candidate to become a serious partner.

Complications ensue as Claire tries to get up to speed with social media etiquette and techniques while Alex tries to engineer a face-to-face encounter.

It’s all laced together cleverly by therapy sessions with a psychoanalyst (Nicole Garcia) in which the two women expound on female sexuality and society’s scrutiny.

Nebbou judges the mood of the moment to perfection, delivering a tautly wrought foray into the darker recesses of the mind - and the internet.