Debuting in Cannes, director Alice Winocour (Augustine) and a perfectly cast Matthias Schoenaerts (Far From the Madding Crowd, Rust and Bone) come together in an intensely compelling psychological drama.
Vincent (Schoenaerts), a special forces soldier, returns from a tour duty to his native south of France. Diagnosed with PTSD and deemed unfit to return to duty, Vincent works as private security for a wealthy Lebanese businessman, secretly an illegal arms dealer.
When Vincent’s employer leaves for a business trip, his wife Jessie (Diane Kruger) and young son are placed under Vincent’s protection. As Vincent fights against his sense of paranoia – a conflict expertly marked by the film’s score and Winocour’s keen understanding of sound design – Jessie’s privileged world starts to collapse from her husband’s criminal dealings.
Schoenaerts is superbly charismatic, an immediately physical yet soulful screen presence underlining Vincent’s haunted and fractured grip on reality. Winocour’s assured direction has shades of Hitchcock, building a palpable sense of disorientation in the film’s first half before hurtling to a final act that thrums with an air of fear and suspense.