In Your Hands

A woman cautiously emerges from a house in the Paris suburbs, then returns to her home and work, telling everyone she knows that she has been on holiday and that everything is normal. Surgeon Anna (Kristin Scott Thomas) clearly has a secret that she doesn’t intend to reveal – but this taut thriller by Lola Doillon keeps the narrative on a slow-burning fuse until Anna walks into a police station and explains what’s really been happening to her. Essentially a two-hander for most of its duration, Doillon’s film pits Anna against a man (Pio Marmaï) with a long-standing grudge against her. An intense, claustrophobic thriller, In Your Hands is an astute and complex examination of the fluid, mutually treacherous relationship between victim and aggressor, captive and jailer. Up-and-comer Marmaï (also seen in the French Revolutions section in Living on Love Alone) makes a powerful impression as sparring partner to Scott Thomas, whose formidable status continues to grow as one of the prime assets of (not exclusively, but especially) French cinema. Here she has one of her most demanding roles yet, and she delivers, sensitively and magnificently. —Jonathan Romney