Obsessive catfishing 101. This could be the easiest way to describe the Juliette Binoche (The English Patient, Chocolat) character-driven vehicle Who You Think I Am. Adapted from the novel of the same name, Safy Nebbou (Mark of an Angel) crafts a taught romantic drama with just enough suspense and twists to keep us actively engaged as we follow Claire (Binoche) navigate her way through the very real world of catfishing.

By definition, catfishing is a deceptive activity where a person creates a fictional persona or fake identity on a social networking service, usually targeting a specific victim. The practice may be used for financial gain, to compromise a victim in some way, to upset a victim intentionally, or for wish fulfillment. In Who You Think I Am, Clair (Binoche) creates a profile to stalk Ludo (Guillaume Gouix), a man some 20+ years her junior who had recently broken off, what he referred to as a casual fling, that the two were having. This was to the displeasure of Clair, who created a Facebook profile of a much younger woman to track the whereabouts of her former lover.

A divorced mother of two elementary-school-aged boys, Clair seems to have never been able to get past the fact that her ex-husband left her for her twenty-five-year-old niece. We can ascertain that Clair has had difficulty processing this breakup and what her life has looked like since through weekly therapy appointments with her tolerant and unattached yet attentive and impressionable psychiatrist, Dr. Bormans (Nicole Garcia). Through her sessions, we learn that Clair has connected with Alex (François Civil – Someone, Somewhere, Frank), Ludo’s photographer roommate, commenting on his publically displayed social media photos. Upon seeing her kind comments, he sends Clair a Facebook friend request.

Clair is a convincing character, though she could be labeled as an unreliable narrator, as she tells her account of the story in conversations with Dr. Bormans, who’s able to identify gaps and even prods Clair to be more forthcoming in her discussions with the psychiatrist. As one might expect with most healthy therapy sessions, Clair opens up as the trust between her and Dr. Bormans grows. We don’t know how long the two may have been client and patient, though it’s safe to assume that their sessions began not too long after the breakup with Ludo.

What Clair didn’t expect to happen was to grow close to Alex. Using an alias of Clara and a photo of a 25-year-old woman that she said she found online, Clair/Clara finds herself instantly attracted to Alex’s good looks. He, thinking he’s seeing a woman his age and not someone old enough to be his mother, believes the same. Their quick, direct messaging through Facebook quickly turns into deeper phone conversations, which, in turn, lead to phone sex. He’s dying for a video call. Knowing everything he believes about her to be true, she offers excuse after excuse. He wants to meet. She rebukes his offer. Alex becomes increasingly suspicious, but he is intricately involved with Clara, and, as the saying goes, love is blind. What will happen between the two?

There are more hits with Who You Think I Amthan, but there are misses. However, parts of the story were either unnecessary or underdeveloped. One of these weaker storylines was her relationship with her children. They weren’t so much as afterthoughts. Had she ignored her responsibility as a fit mother to delve further into her online obsessions with Alex, this would have taken us even deeper into her depths of what could then even be referred to as madness. But, while her children don’t seem to be a priority, she still properly engages in her motherly duties. Again, the story may have better developed this, but her character didn’t need to be a mother for the movie’s sake. The time devoted to this undeveloped story should have been better utilized to explore, perhaps, more of her previous traumas.

Conversely, sufficient time was devoted to the relationship progression between Clair/Clara and Alex. Though we haven’t met him, we care about Alex. We know that Clair is being lied to, but this doesn’t make her an antagonist. On the contrary, we hope for the pair, whether telling him of her age and accepting it or something else. The movie is soft enough in tone, and there is too much good between the pair to suggest that this movie will result in animosity or betrayal. However, as much as we hope for an amicable ending, it’s hard to imagine this being a reality, with so much of the relationship’s foundation built upon such a significant lie.

In a career that has entered its fifth decade, Binoche is twenty years removed from her second of two Oscar nominations (Chocolat) and twenty-five from her first and only win (The English Patient). While not as mainstream as she once was and often now prefers to do films in her native French, she still shows up in big-budget American movies from time to time (High Life, Ghost in the Shell, The 33 Godzilla in the last decade). However, her preference seems to be, and rightfully so, foreign, character-driven, art-house dramas that strike an accord more with critics than with audiences (as evidenced in nine of her previous ten films on Rotten Tomatoes).

Although I’ll miss seeing several of these movies, I was happy that Who You Think I Am (an uninspiring or catchy title I need to remember) popped up as a suggestion on Amazon Prime. At the same time, she’ll always be the engaging entrepreneur Vianne (Chocolate) or the reluctant World War II French-Canadian nurse Hana (The English Patient), Who You Think I Am has reintroduced me to her terrific ability to become invested in the roles she portrays. It was a unique experience exploring a character who is so unable to process her abandonment that she resorts to creating a fake profile to continue to be an outside looker on the person who left her.

Plot 8/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 8.5/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing  8/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8.5/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
84%

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