If you enjoy a movie with loads of atmosphere that leads you deeper and deeper into a complex mystery, and then refuses to give easy answers, then you will love "The Woman in the Fifth" - I know I do.

An American writer, Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke),arrives in Paris to try to meet with his daughter. His ex-wife immediately calls the police and we realise that there has been some ugly history between them.

Broke, Tom is given a room in a seedy hostel in exchange for taking a job as a nightwatchman in the basement of a strange building. At a literary gathering he meets Margit Kadar (Kristen Scott Thomas). Margit lives in the fifth arrondissement - the woman in the fifth - and they have an affair. His life starts to take unexpected turns. At the hotel, he also has an affair with a young Polish waitress, and a confrontation with the aggressive man in the next room. All the while, trying various ways to see his daughter.

By the end of the film there has been a murder, a kidnapping, and revelations about Margit Kadar that reveal that all is not right with Tom Ricks. Not much is explained at the end - the last scene leaves us wondering.

Movies that blur the line between what is real and what is being imagined have been around for a while now. Back in the days of Film Noir it usually turned out that it was all just a dream - a not too satisfying resolution that quickly became trite. However, over the last couple of decades, movies that blur the line have become much trickier.

The process in more recent times may have started with movies that are not exactly ghost stories, but feature people who don't know they are dead. A forerunner was "Carnival of Souls" in 1962, but Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" wasn't the only one to see dead people, they popped up in "Jacob's Ladder", "The Others", "Passengers", and "November" to name a few.

Then there are the split personalities - the cinematic interpretation of schizophrenia. David Lynch's films, "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Dr." come to mind. Then there is "Fever", "A Beautiful Mind", and the recent "I, Anna" as well as "Trance", which have explored this phenomenon. "The Woman in the Fifth" belongs with this group.

Although that tricky shift between the real and the imaginary has probably been seen a few times too often now, "the Woman in the Fifth" does it well. This intriguing film has an affecting central story, a fascinating location and compelling performances all round.

American writer/lecturer Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) comes to Paris desperate to reconnect with his daughter. He's not wanted by his ex. He ends up in a dilapidated hotel where the manager Sezer is holding his passport hostage. He works for the unsavory character watching a door. His neighbor is a threatening brute. Then he meets Margit (Kristin Scott Thomas) at a literary party. They have an affair. He's stalking his little girl. He has another affair with the café girl which could cause him trouble with Sezer.

This is trying to be an atmospheric moody mystery thriller. The pacing is too slow to be thrilling. The atmosphere is indie adjacent and a little dreary. It could be much more moody and stylish. The one thing that this movie desperately needs is energy. Ethan Hawke is decidedly angry and tired. Writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski has a certain style here, and it grinds away at the movie. It's a movie that is trying to come up with something compelling.

Tom Ricks (Ethan Hawke) is an American novelist who goes to Paris in hopes of patching up his relationship with his ex-wife (Delphine Chuillot) and daughter (Julie Papillon). She wants nothing to do with him because of some event in their past, which is not fully explained. Through a series of bad luck he ends up working for a man named Sezer (Samir Guesmi) as a night time doorman, a job steeped with symbolism as he works on his second novel.

Meanwhile, Tom meets a mysterious older woman (Kristin Scott Thomas) who has taken a shine to him. She is the "Woman in the Fifth." He begins an affair with her about the same time he takes up with Sezer's girlfriend, his "Polish muse" (Joanna Kulig). We don't know how weird things really are until near the end of the tale.

If I told you I understood everything in this film, I would be lying. There is symbolism in his forest writing, the bugs, and the light which dims and goes bright, none of which I fully understood. Then there is the weird aspect of the movie which turns this into an existential film, something I didn't fully comprehend. I didn't think it was worth watching a second time through in an attempt to make heads or tails out of the film.

This is an artsy film. It is in part in English and French with subtitles, and Polish with no subtitles. The action moves slow as it concentrates on the character of Tom Ricks. I am looking for a good plot spoiler review to tell me what I just watched.

Parental Guide: F-bomb (in French, spelled correctly for us in English),sex, no nudity.