Where to begin with The Woman in the Fifth? Billed as an intriguing mystery thriller, it certainly wasn't what I was expecting. My previous encounters with Pawel Palikowski's work (the director) have been limited to My Summer of Love – which, I have to say, was in every way much more of a film.

Here, Ethan Hawke plays the irksome American protagonist in a predominantly French film by a British director. The result is a bizarre mish-mash that is confusing and unnerving in many ways. At no point did I feel comfortable or 'drawn in' by this film – but I suspect that was the point. Hawke's appallingly grating accent is constantly jarring but serves to remind us that he is an outsider in many ways: not just in Paris where the film is set, but also in the world at large. His character is a divorced novelist trying to write his second book whilst blatantly defying a court order that prohibits him from contacting his ex-wife and daughter for reasons which, we are led to believe, have to do with his mental instability and a violent temperament.

A large part of the film involves a voice-over of Hawke dictating a letter to Chloe, his six year old daughter, with whom he desperately wants contact. A series of unintelligible, almost ridiculous choices lead to his being forced to board with a decidedly dodgy French-Arab man who takes his passport and very quickly goes from being kindly saviour to mafia manipulator. This occurs in the first few scenes of the film, the remainder of which leads us through a somewhat disconnected but almost inevitable series of events that ultimately appear to make absolutely no sense. Not in an artistic, surreal David Lynch type of way - but in a thoroughly disconcerting manner that leaves us questioning the entire state of Hawke's reality.

The eponymous Woman of the film's title is played by Kristen Scott Thomas who, in many ways, is almost a non-entity in the film. She has very few scenes and is not immediately particularly intriguing – indeed, you begin to wonder quite why her character exists at all until two-thirds of the way through the film when we are suddenly hit with what seems like a totally dissociated statement that brings her very sharply into relevance. It was a bolt from the blue that felt so absurd I found myself questioning whether I had heard correctly.

What Pawel certainly succeeds in doing with this film is leaving you incredibly uncomfortable and thinking about the story long after you have left the cinema – but not in any particularly satisfying way. Hawke's character is thoroughly dislikeable, and yet it seems that, in order for the full impact of the final scenes to hit their mark emotionally, you really do have to sympathise with him. But I just couldn't find any redeeming qualities: not with his writer's block, his love for his daughter, or his passion for the Woman in the Fifth. It's possible that this is entirely the effect that Pawel was hoping for; however - as I did at many moments during the film itself - I still find myself wondering quite why.