A woman falling prey to psychotic romantic obsession is a story older than the Bible, so plotwise Nathan Silver’s Thirst Street about a grieving American flight attendant who moves to Paris to stalk her one-night fling, is nothing new. And truth be told, the opening minutes play like a marriage between Wes Anderson and 1970s giallo, with stylized montage, Anjelica Huston’s wry narration, and candy colors. What Thirst Street gets painfully right, though, is the desperate alienation of living in a beautiful country that doesn’t want you and that you don’t understand. Lindsay Burdge plays Gina, a shy woman whose boyfriend has recently committed suicide. In a stupor, she allows her well-meaning coworkers to drag her to what the outdated guidebook promises is a quaint Parisian cabaret. It’s actually a strip club, and Gina goes home with the sketchy bartender, Jérôme (Damien Bonnard). Whether by chance or because we’re trapped in her already unmoored perspective, he looks just like her dead partner. By morning, she’s in love. We’ve all heard enough boiled bunny references to last a lifetime. But Burdge plays Gina as a devastated, rootless woman rather than male paranoia given flesh. Somehow, her acting combines with cinematography straight from an artsy 1970s porno and a soundtrack of woozy love songs to create an expressionist portrait of overwhelming loneliness. by Joule Zelman