This review originally ran on 11/10/15 during the AFI Film Festival

Among the films in the “New Auteurs” category is the French film “Disorder,” a full sensory experience that successfully fuses a high-tension thriller with an engaging dramatic story that creates lasting uneasiness long past the hour and a half runtime.

Written and directed by Alice Winocour, “Disorder” tells the story of Vincent (Matthias Schoenaerts, “Rust and Bone”), an ex-soldier suffering from PTSD, who has been assigned to provide personal security to a high-profile and possibly-shady businessman’s wife, Jessie (Diane Kruger, “Inglorious Basterds”) and her young son, Ali. Struggling to keep his traumatic past behind him, and despite piercing bouts of panic attacks, Vincent’s paranoia serves as foresight when masked men forcibly put his and the lives he’s promised to protect in danger.

Schoenaerts and Kruger create a quiet sense of unrest, adding personal and emotional tension between the two against the backdrop of the suspense of the film. With the sharp sound design from electronic music-maker Gesaffelstein, “Disorder” falls into the same vein as other traditional Hitchcockian films: progressively stylized and a great character study into the mental landscape of a man unhinged.

“Disorder” is not rated. 98 minutes. Opening at the Laemmle Royal Theater in Santa Monica this Friday.