France (Blu-ray)

Lea Seydoux (No Time to Die) brilliantly holds the center of Bruno Dumonts (Lil Quinquin)unexpected, unsettling new film France, which starts out as a satire of the contemporary newsmedia before steadily spiraling out into something richer and darker. Never one to shy awayfrom provoking his viewers, Dumont casts Seydoux as France de Meurs, a seemingly unflappablesuperstar TV journalist whose career, home life, and psychological stability are shaken after shecarelessly drives into a young delivery man on a busy Paris street. This accident triggers a series ofself-reckonings, as well as a strange romance that proves impossible to shake. A film that teases atredemption while refusing to grant absolution, France is tragicomic and deliciously ambivalentavery 21st-century treatment of the difficulty of maintaining identity in a corrosive culture.