WHO YOU THINK I AM
★★★★
DIRECTOR Safy Nebbou
CAST Juliette Binoche, Nicole Garcia, François Civil, Guillaume Gouix
PLOT To cyber-stalk her younger ex (Gouix), fiftysomething Claire (Binoche) creates a much younger online alter-ego, Clara — who soon attracts the attention of her former lover’s roommate, Alex (Civil).
THE STORY OF a fiftysomething divorced mother (Juliette Binoche) who lives another life online as a twentysomething, Who You Think I Am could take a number of approaches to its promising premise. It could be a comedy drama where a mature woman finds her true self through the prism of new-fangled social media. Or it could be a psychological thriller played out from the rarely observed point of view of the perp rather than the victim. To his credit, co-writerdirector Safy Nebbou manages to accommodate both tones in an elegantly made movie that only falters when it comes to wrapping things up. Its key asset is, of course, Binoche, owner of one of the most expressive faces in cinema history, who somehow makes you empathise with a catfish (or poisson-chat).
Binoche plays Claire, a literature lecturer whose husband left her for a much younger woman and who is subsequently seeking affirmation in younger men. Yet, after being cruelly ghosted by Ludo (Guillaume Gouix), Claire gets both desperate and online. She creates a Facebook profile — Clara, 25, fashion intern — and begins to cyberstalk Ludo by friending his roommate, sensitive photographer type Alex (François Civil). The forging of the pair’s connection is the film’s most engaging stretch. Claire begins to find herself living out this new persona, dancing like no-one’s watching and letting loose with hot and heavy phone sex in a parked car. It also has fun with the generation gap — watching Binoche react with complete befuddlement when she is asked for her Insta deets is priceless. Alex, for his part, becomes increasingly desperate to meet Clara, with Claire becoming increasingly frantic trying to appear young (“Sometimes you talk like someone’s mum,” Alex tells her) and keep her double life separate — a moment where she drives in circles round a small car park talking to Alex while her kids wait to be picked up is hilarious.
Yet the film has another string to its bow in a framing device where Claire is relating her story to a new therapist, Dr Bormans (Nicole Garcia). It starts as a simple tool for exposition, allowing Claire to paint the picture of her passions, but soon takes on different turns, partly when Claire turns the tables on her shrink and starts quizzing her inquisitor, and partly because it sets up the possibility that Clare is an unreliable narrator, not exactly telling the truth about her life.
Who You Think I Am circles ideas around the double-edged nature of social media, the importance of being desired as you get older and the double standards facing age differences between men and women. As the story moves on, Nebbou, and co-writer Julie Peyr, adapting the novel by Camille Laurens, take the tone into more serious dramatic territory. By the third act, the twists, turns and rug-pulls build up at such a dizzying rate that they undermine credibility. But Binoche keeps it all on track, perfectly toggling between the joy of a new love and the nerviness of maintaining a façade. Who You Think I Am is another stage in a golden era for Binoche, from Let The Sunshine In to High Life, Non-fiction to The Truth. Long may it continue.
DIRECTOR Pablo Larraín
CAST Mariana Di Girolamo, Gael García Bernal
PLOT Following the short-lived adoption of a young boy which ended traumatically, Ema (Di Girolamo) and Gaston (Bernal) come to a crossroads in their relationship. She’s a dancer, he’s a choreographer, and through the movement in their professional lives, their personal ones begin to unravel.
THERE ARE DENSE, delicious layers of poetry and physical language to sink your teeth into in Pablo Larraín’s incendiary drama Ema (his first since Jackie), in which the limits of human desire are stretched and tested. The somewhat simple premise — a couple suffering through the aftermath of a loss — unravels with serious intensity, with gripping performances and a labyrinthian story that just keeps unfolding.
As the eponymous dancer at the epicentre of a microcosm of destruction, Mariana Di Girolamo is a magnetic presence. The relative newcomer leads proceedings with a subtle command of both body language and her delivery of the sharp dialogue. Larraín frames early arguments between Ema and Gael García Bernal’s Gaston (he’s the choreographer of her dance troupe) as direct addresses to the viewer, each hurting party putting their pain on our shoulders when the other can no longer carry it. Bernal is as enigmatic as ever, even as he is needy and neurotic — this is one of the actor’s most comical roles to date.
The story quickly spirals out of this one couple’s control, as notions of loyalty and ownership, of power and independence, become fluid. The guilt and resentment over the couple’s loss sows the seeds of a dangerously seductive story, turning grown adults into beings childlike and impulsive. Other lovers and relatives enter Ema’s orbit, prioritising an atmospheric world of desire and feeling over any one linear narrative. Larraín weaves a story that looks at the sexual dynamics of secretly polyamorous people, tainted by the tension surrounding the couple after they abandon adopted son Polo to an orphanage after a horrific incident involving his aunt.
The seductive mood is sharply crafted both sonically and visually. DJ and producer Nicolas Jaar spins a rousing electronic score that blurs synths and sirens, reggaeton beats and piercing vocals. Music courses through the film, underscoring the choreography but also accentuating moments of quiet — ones probably lived in silence, now incandescent for the viewer imagining what emotions could be running through these characters’ minds.
DP Sergio Armstrong lenses the film in extreme colours, incorporating the pink and green lamps of nighttime streets, and some shots fully ablaze with orange due to pyromaniac outbreaks at night. It never veers into anything garish or unbelievable, though, Larraín operating in taut, powerful displays of restraint. If vibrant clothing is worn, the rest of the frame is muted. In one scene, burning traffic light crackles against a dark sky.
Piercing stares full of longing and lacking punctuate the film, a vividly human portrait that explores the limits of physical expression. Fear and pleasure, birth and disposal, freedom and responsibility — the obsessions of a relationship powered and chained by love are examined in dizzying detail in a masterful exploration of complicated emotions.