The Eavesdropper (aka Scribe) (La Mecanique de l'ombre) (2016)

"Thriller" has all but come to mean "a genre that in the end descends into nonsense" and so it is refreshing to watch this sinister thriller that manages to hold itself together, just, in telling the story of an unemployed alcoholic who is suddenly tasked Red-Headed League-style to sit alone in an apartment transcribing bugged conversations for a man who purports to represent national security in France.

★★★☆☆

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Perfect Strangers (Perfetti Sconosciuti) (2016)

The laughs in this timely comedy of e-manners quickly become awkward when dinner party guests, a likeable group of fortysomethings, agree to a game in which mobile phones are abandoned to the dinner table thereby granting everyone present access to all others' incoming communications, a game which reveals lies and secrets that threaten to eclipse the circle's good times.

★★★★☆

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