Cannes Review: Matthias Schoenaerts And Diane Kruger Shine In Alice Winocour's 'Disorder'

A compact, effective, if low-key film that takes an interestingly counterintuitive approach to its blending of arthouse and genre elements, Alice Winocour's "Disorder" (which will be its title in the U.S. where it's French name "Maryland" might suggest a light comedy involving rival crabcake recipes) is a small but polished find. Starring an entirely convincing Matthias Schoenaerts and a delicately understated Diane Kruger, the film moves in the opposite direction to many hybrids, starting out as a more formally adventurous exercise in empathy for a character suffering from a collection of symptoms that suggest Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but switching gear in its second half to take on the form of a genre thriller. Perhaps surprisingly, while a certain amount of the nuance is lost or left unresolved by this shift, it perhaps is the stronger film in those latter home-invasion sections, where Winocour shows a very sure, swift hand for rhythm and tension building...