Who You Think I Am

Simply transforming yourself into someone else who is more beautiful, younger and more successful? The self-created profiles in the social media of the “World Wide Web” make it possible. Yet the attractive Claire (Juliette Binoche) is 50 years old, a single mother and successful literature lecturer, and is actually in the middle of life. Only her husband's attraction to a much younger woman is eating away at her self-confidence. And so Claire begins an affair with the young twenty-something Ludo, which also remains rather non-committal and spurs Claire on to create a fake Facebook profile for espionage purposes. Claire becomes Clara: 24 years young, pretty, open-minded. But it's not her lover who jumps at her, but Alex, Ludo's best friend. An intense chat flirtation develops with the young photographer - the world is virtual, but the feelings are real. While Claire increasingly succumbs to the pull of the parallel world, Alex finally wants to meet her in real life and get to know her. Claire becomes increasingly distressed and loses control of the game of appearances... When someone pretends to be someone else online, it's called “catfishing”. The fact that pretending to be someone else doesn't end well is foreshadowed by the plot of “The Way You Want Me”: Claire sits opposite a therapist as a patient in a psychiatric clinic, whom she tells about the Facebook affair that the movie rolls out in flashbacks. Nebbou's adaptation of the novel is somewhere between a romantic comedy and a thriller. The literary inspiration for this is once again the book “Dangerous Liaisons”, which the literature lecturer Claire talks about in a lecture. In Chaderlos de Laclos' epistolary novel, people are also manipulated through written words and ultimately punished for their sexual excesses. “The way you want me” proves to be an exciting variation in the digital age of insecurities. “Juliette Binoche is great in the role, which is almost a double role, so different are her voice, facial expressions and gestures as Clara or Claire. Her blossoming and her passion when Alex desires her and has phone sex with her in the car is beautiful. Claire's deception also has something emancipatory about it. And it's always very funny: at one point, Claire drives around in circles in front of her children, whom she wants to pick up from school, because she doesn't want to interrupt a phone call with Alex. It's also very funny when the literature lecturer searches for phrases that a 24-year-old would probably use while chatting or comes across gaps in her knowledge: “Are you on Insta?” Alex asks at one point. The look on Claire's face when she reads this and has to google what it means is priceless.” (Martina Knoben, at: sueddeutsche.de)