Who is the creepy, sniveling, shrew-like stranger named Pierre whom Huguette hitches a ride with? Is he a teacher from Paris who has abandoned his wife and kids to embark on a new life? A serial killer on the run who gains his victim’s trust by performing magic tricks? Or could he be a writer in search of a character and experiences for his next work?

French director and Oscar winner Claude Lelouch clearly has fun playing with the audience’s mind in this thriller that delights in tossing out more red herrings than a Northern Atlantic fisherman on a successful run. The main story thread in Roman de Gare, which means “crossed tracks” in English, finds Huguette (Audrey Dana) getting left behind at a rest stop by her fiancé on the way to a visit with her parents. Suffering from serious self-esteem issues and apparently lacking much judgment, Huguette decides to catch a ride towards her parent’s place in the countryside with Pierre (Dominique Pinon), despite news of an escaped serial killer being broadcast all over the radio. During the drive, Huguette, ashamed that another relationship has ended, asks Pierre to continue on with her to her parent’s rambling farmhouse, where he can pretend to be her fiancé.

Roman de Gare is at its best during that visit to the French countryside. A tense lunch scene has Pierre almost blowing his cover by saying strange things– for instance, he and Huguette are planning on honeymooning at Lady Di’s grave after their wedding. Later, pretending to be a doctor, Pierre provides a suspect diagnosis when he says Huguette’s mother’s ailing knee is a result of something happening in her mind. Throughout the scene, the wide-eyed Dana effectively conveys Huguette’s wild fear that Pierre will reveal he is not her fiance.

Following the meal, Pierre leaves to go trout fishing with Huguette’s teenage daughter as a pig being slaughtered on the farm shrieks in the background. At this point in the film, it’s hard to tell if Pierre is a shy, socially awkward man doing a stranger a favor or a fox in a henhouse, a phrase he utters into a handheld tape recorder as he takes an initial tour of the home.

When Pierre leaves the farmhouse and meets up with the crime novelist Judith Ralitzer (Fanny Ardant), the film’s tension slackens and the character’s true natures and motives become more apparent. Still, the actors make Roman de Gare worth the ride anyway. Pinon (Alien: Resurrection, The City of Lost Children) does an exceptional job of making Pierre believable as both a twitchy sociopath in some scenes and a refined man of words in others.

The main problem with Roman de Gare is that the film raises more than just questions about Pierre’s identity, the biggest being, Why would Huguette initially trust the seemingly sinister Pierre?

ROMAN DE GARE ( 2 ½ ) Directed by Claude Lelouch. • Starring Dominique Pinon, Fanny Ardent and Audrey Dana. • R, 103 min. • At the Osio Cinemas.