#REVIEW: “THE UNKNOWN”

By Amanda Gilmore

The Unknown is a hypnotizing body-swap film soaked in existential dread.

After taking a mysterious pill at a party, photographer David (Niels Schneider) locks eyes and hooks up with a woman he vaguely recognizes, an Actor named Eva (Léa Seydoux). The next morning, he awakens in the woman’s body. When David finds his original body, he learns that this isn’t a traditional body-swap. Instead, a young, terrified woman named Malia (Lilith Grasmug) is now housed in David’s body. The two team up in search of answers and solutions to find their way back to their original flesh.

The body-swap premise has been done and dusted…but not the way The Unknown has. Filmmaker Arthur Harari (co-writer of Anatomy of a Fall) pulls audiences into this mystifying story of souls learning to navigate new bodies. The cinematography and absorbing score create a claustrophobic feeling that mirrors David and Malia’s entrapment in their foreign bodies. 

It’s really the performances that navigate this labyrinthine tale. Seydoux is extraordinary as a man discovering life in a female body. He begins to fear when a man creepily advances on him. In a midway plot twist, the full ability of the female body is explored. It’s something that will grip some but may lose others. Then there’s the unrecognizable Schneider who stuns as a 20-year-old girl stuck inside a grown man’s body.

Even though we never fully get the answer as to how this all happened (was it the pill or a supernatural entity?), this is a worthy existential journey of discovering how attached our souls are to our bodies.

The Unknown screens at TIFF ’26:

Tues. Sept 15 @ 3:15 PM at TIFF Lightbox

Thur. Sept 17 @ 7 PM at Scotiabank Theatre Toronto