In arthouse flicks, it’s the unspoken that makes them so intriguing. And this perplexing yet hypnotic adult thriller from Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love), which leaves plenty of room for various interpretations by the time the end credits roll, seduces viewers with its extremely nuanced plot and performances.

American author Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) arrives in Paris intending to reconnect with his estranged wife and young daughter. The attempt at reconciliation goes poorly and Tom, after his luggage is stolen, ends up in a flophouse at the edge of the city. The proprietor, Sezer (Samir Guesmi), sort of takes pity on him, letting him stay without paying (with a bigger unspoken price to pay soon after, nonetheless), and later giving him a mysterious security job at a run-down warehouse, buzzing people in if they speak the right name.

While spending his nights writing long letters to his daughter and trying to scrape up the money to hire an immigration and child custody lawyer, Ricks strikes up a relationship with Ania (Joanna Kulig), a Polish waitress with an interest in poetry. And at a bohemian writers’ event, he also meets Margit Kadar (Kristin Scott Thomas), an enigmatic translator whom he has an affair with. But Tom’s world spirals downwards soon after that when he gets framed for a murder that he didn’t commit (or did he?), and his alibi, Margit, goes missing. Is Tom truly losing it?

The Woman in the Fifth (the title refers to Margit’s mysterious lodging) is a dark testimonial to the creative bloom during times of misery, and dances about on both literal and metaphorical planes to beautiful and suitably dark effect. Hawke is never better as the desperate father trying to piece his life together, while Scott Thomas is captivating as the older seductress who bathes Tom with lines like “a real tragedy if you play your cards right.” You won’t see a bigger mind-f**k this year.