The French director Arnaud Desplechin makes tangled, pained family histories and casts splendid actors to bring them to life. In this case, Mathieu Amalric (Quantum of Solace and a lot of better French films), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist, Nymphomaniac), and Marion Cotillard (Inception and...a lot of better French films), play out the story of a film director, his new lover, and his long-vanished, suddenly returned wife. Amalric plays the titular Ismael, caught between woman as he makes his own film about a diplomat. This film has gotten fantastic reviews, but the actors alone make it worth catching.