In Justine Triet’s Sibyl—starring Gaspard Ulliel, Virginie Efira and Sandra Hüller—chaos equates to delight and the ethically wrong is exhilarating. Psychoanalysis and cinema come together in a thrillingly erotic and perilous game blurring fiction and reality, dizzyingly escaping any classification.

While the American tradition of the romantic comedy has waned in recent years, Justine Triet’s portrait of a woman at a crossroads in the courtroom and bedroom proves the beloved genre is alive and well in France. A feminist revision of the romcom—proving the familiar can still be unpredictable.

The row between two unreasonable parents, played by Laetitia Dosch (Jeune Femme) and Vincent Macaigne, is set against the backdrop of the 2012 presidential elections. Justine Triet’s (Anatomy of a Fall) film, made of personal friction and political exhilaration, is a true French frenzy.