L'inconnue

‘First she had a grand, monstrous orgasm, and then he was suddenly inside her. Not with a body part or anything, but lock, stock and barrel, trapped in someone else's skin. In the filthy body-swap horror L’inconnue, we follow introverted photographer David (Niels Schneider), who ends up in the body of his unknown sex partner Eva (Léa Seydoux) after an unwise onenightstand. As he tries to unravel this bizarre mystery — who is the patient zero who infected him with this body swap through intimate contact? — he runs into his old body, which is now inhabited by a woman named Malia. Together they go in search of the super-spreader, while both dealing with their own identity crises. Where Eva's body feels liberating for the somber David, the once young and lively Malia would like nothing better than to wriggle out of her new, worn-out skin. She used to be so beautiful, and now she's... this. Writer-director Arthur Harari (Anatomy of a Fall) based L’inconnue on the graphic novel The David Zimmerman Case, which he made with his brother. While the film swings between the madness of Possession and the paranoia of It Follows, Harari stays so close to his characters' skin with his camera that it feels suffocating. Next time, maybe think twice before jumping on (and into) someone else.’