Margaret Qualley is lively and engaging, but Stars At Noon is let down by a wearingly meandering plot and lacklustre chemistry.

Mysterious, opaque, probably worth revisiting down the road… a classic Claire Denis movie then.

Playing out in cheap motels with sweating walls, it’s a languid mood piece rather than a thriller, but one that leaves a sense of discomfort that creeps over the skin like a heat rash.

Stars at Noon seems invested in ideas less prescriptive, more porous: what it might mean to be a bad front-row witness to history-making, how shared realities scatter and how there are many ways to lose yourself.