Who You Think I Am

A cautionary tale lies crystal clear beneath this seductively intriguing French tale of catfish, as a 50-year-old woman tries to lure a much younger man into a relationship by means of a fictional online persona.
Juliette Binoche brilliantly portrays Claire Millaud a divorced mother of two whose obsession with Alex Chelly (Francois Civil), a man she romances on social media but never actually meets, becomes quasi psychotic.
The film opens with Claire attending a therapeutic session with her therapist, the story unfolding through flashbacks. She states, “This is for people like me” and “It’s been a long time since I felt this good with someone,” later on revealing that “I wasn’t pretending to be 24 – I was 24.”
Audiences will impatiently ponder from the onset as to whether this film about unfathomable love and desire is headed towards tragedy. Highly erotic, mysterious and suspenseful, this psychological thriller has many outlandish twists and turns in the second half which will keep audiences perplexed trying to evaluate what is happening.
Is Claire a warped and delusional psychopath who cannot differentiate between reality and fantasy or just a woman in desperate need of love? The climactic 30 seconds of the film reveals the answer. (MMo)
★★★ ½