Director: Iris Kaltenbäck
97 mins, France, 2023, Digital, Subtitled, F-Rated
A lonely Parisian woman takes an obsessive interest in her best friend’s infant daughter in writer-director Iris Kaltenbäck’s engrossing psychological thriller. Lydia (Hafsia Herzi) is a recently single midwife; depressed, she immerses herself in long shifts, and fills in the remaining hours wandering the streets and going to the movies alone. She finds some happiness when she midwifes her best friend Salome’s (Nina Meurisse) baby, and has a brief fling with bus driver Milos (Alexis Manenti), but when he cuts her off, she engages in a desperate act of deception, initiating a sequence of events that soon spiral out of control.
Notes by David O’Mahony
Screening as part of the IFI French Film Festival, November 15 – 26.