Stanzler takes a stressed-out New York professional woman (Robin Wright Penn) and puts her, late one night, in the cab driven by Ashade (Abdellatif Kechiche), a devout Muslim and Syrian immigrant. Over the course of a mysterious personal errand to the New Jersey suburbs and their return, the two people's stories come out, or seem to. The woman is Phyllis, a programming exec at an MTV-like network who's in charge of a series called "Sorry, Haters," in which celebs display their gratuitous wealth to the masses. Ashade is a Ph.D. chemist who is taking care of his French sister-in-law (Élodie Bouchez) and her baby; his brother was recently seized at the airport and disappeared to Guantánamo. Phyllis has clout and thinks she can help; Ashade is of course grateful for this Samaritan's intervention.

As I say, these are the two people's stories; the reality, in each case, may be a bit more complicated. If you pay attention, you'll figure out pretty fast which one of them is the most outrageous liar, but Stanzler's script has laid many traps for both people and for us. Wright Penn, a fine actress always overshadowed by her husband, is particularly good as a single career woman beset by voracious bitterness toward herself and the world. Kechiche, a Tunisian-born actor and director with an elegant bearing, has a more straightforward role, but as his relationship with Phyllis ravels and unravels, Ashade also displays some darker patches.

Even in this plot summary, I've already deliberately misled you; it's just that kind of movie. There's an utterly implausible terrorism subplot, along with a funny supporting role by Sandra Oh as a co-worker at the Q-Dog network, and some entertaining snippets of "Sorry, Haters," Phyllis' purported show. But basically the movie rises or falls with Penn and Kechiche, as two lonely people drawn to each other in the American night, with knives drawn. In their best moments, they find an emotional truth in Stanzler's script that transcends its increasingly grotesque story and alleged political significance. And, of course, there's a sting in the tail you may be expecting but still won't quite predict

Unfortunately, its Hitchcockian treatment of sin, guilt and transference produces a dramatic imbalance that undermines the emotional credibility the material requires.

Given political volatility and Stanzler’s awkward handling, this low-budget production will represent something of a challenge for distributors commercially, while overseas its very US theme may not help. Dream Entertainment picked up international rights at AFM; deals before then included Nexo for Italy.

Featuring a brave, if problematic, lead performance from Robin Wright Penn, Stanzler’s first feature since Jumpin' At The Boneyard (1992) studies the emotional and personal complications of a chance encounter between damaged souls.

Phoebe (Wright Penn) is an angry, disillusioned white hipster who heads programming for Q Dog TV, a cutting edge, hip-hop network whose most popular programme supplies the feature’s playfully ironic title.

Ashade (Kechice, the director of L'Esquive) is a Syrian-born chemist who makes a living driving a New York cab. Introduced at his mosque partaking in daily prayers, he is distraught over his brother’s political detainment and the attendant problems raising the money to hire a qualified immigration lawyer. He’s also wracked with guilt over his strong sexual attraction to his beautiful sister-in-law Eloise (the under-used Bouchez).

One night Phoebe flags down Ashade’s cab, and immediately the power dynamics between the two, as they argue over money, signals the tense, angry sense of imminent collapse and breakdown.

As the pair progress from Lower Manhattan to suburban New Jersey to Midtown, Phoebe slowly and methodically insinuates herself into Ashade’s life. Controlling and manipulative, she invites herself into Eloise’s apartment, where the young French-Canadian emigree lives with her young son.

Correctly intuiting Ashade's attraction to Eloise, Phoebe asserts her will on the essentially good, if confused, man. In turn Phoebe gains Ashade's trust by presenting herself as an aggrieved mother and victimised wife whose privileged life was taken away from her.

But Phoebe's control over Ashade carries grim consequences. In the first indication that Phoebe is seriously distraught, she invites Ashade to participate in a terrorist act in order to claim martyr status for his brother.

By the final third Stanzler has lost control of his feature, orchestrating a series of dramatic plot and character reversals that forces a constant reconsideration that radically changes the scale of the movie.

Stanzler earns credit for hubris, though the extreme tonal shift is not grounded in any form of recognisable behaviour nor character detail.

Wright Penn certainly commands the screen, though her performance, seemingly modelled on the lower-class working women Gena Rowlands played to perfection in her films with John Cassavetes such as A Woman Under The Influence, becomes increasingly hysterical and mannered.

"Robin Wright Penn withdraws as much money as an ATM will allow then climbs into an Off Duty cab and says 'drive uptown. I’ll tell you where I’m going later.' The taxi’s destination is Englewood, New Jersey, in front of a suburban home. She sits in the taxi for a while as a man and woman in the driveway move into the house; she alights, picks up a rock and scratches the side of a brand new Lexus.

"On the return trip Mohammed (Abdel Kechiche) asks if he can make a stop. The apartment is his brother and sister-in-law’s. Robin Wright Penn introduces herself to Mohammed and his sister-in-law when she barges into the apartment to use the bathroom. Her name is Phylly. Mohammed explains that is brother has been deported to Guantánamo while changing planes at JFK. Philly is horrified and wants to help.

"When she is asked what type of work she does she replies that she is program director at Q-Dog a TV station. 'We tell fat girls to kill themselves; kids to forget about college and get nose jobs and implants instead; teenage boys to rape young girls; and all people to spend as much as possible on things they don’t need so others can have less. Sorry, haters.' On the way downtown to contact a lawyer, Phylly is now sitting in the front of the cab. The West has seduced the East. This is the beginning of a true roller coaster ride. With great air of mystery and numerous bizarre plot twists the story move towards an absolutely unforgettable ending.

"Inspiration for the film came from an actual incident at JFK where a man arriving from Canada to switch planes was deported to Guantánamo with no charges. Jeff Stanzler wanted to make an American film which had an Arab man in the lead (no, Omar Sharif doesn’t count). He also had some other things he wanted to express, things that would be spoilers were they mentioned before anyone sees this film. My first instinct was to think that SORRY, HATERS is too off the wall to have a message. On rethinking that point I realize that Stanzler is extraordinarily unconventional. When Phylly says to Mohammed, 'You must really hate America, don’t you?' he replies gently 'No, I don’t.' Some Americans may be too anxious to put a face on their enemy.

Robin Wright Penn stars as Phoebe, a New York City woman who is, it becomes instantly clear, totally bat-shit crazy. Insane. Off her rocker. Unbalanced. She takes a cab one night and slowly involves its unsuspecting Arab driver, Ashade (Abdellatif Kechiche), in the twisted reality of her life, intertwining her problems with his in increasingly dramatic and frightening ways. She’s tormented over the life she’s always dreamed of being lived by another woman (Sandra Oh), and he’s struggling to help his brother, who’s been wrongfully deported to Syria by the American government. Together, the duo embark on a frenetic series of days and nights, fraught with high tension, revenge, anger, psychosis and violence, all leading to a climax that left the audience slack-jawed and stunned.

I honestly had no idea what to make of this movie as I watched it – it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Very raw and gritty, shot on DV and laced with a sense of foreboding and rage. And yet, it’s become one of those films that’s grown on me the further I am from it. I initially viewed Penn’s character as completely unlikable and unsympathetic, bordering on hateful, but after digesting the story for a while I’ve come to see her as very sad and extremely desperate. Not to mention indescribably unique. Kudos to Penn for embracing the character so completely, warts and all. And Kechiche provides a sound counterbalance, remaining a calm but not passive victim to Phoebe’s radical tactics.

At the Q&A after the film, its director, Jeff Stanzler, explained that he’s been having a hard time getting Sorry, Haters into festivals, let alone landing distribution. And it’s easy to see why. But if you give yourself over to its crazy-ass story and even crazier central character, you may just discover its psychologically thrilling merit. Like Phoebe, it’s undeniably mad but certainly unforgettable.

Even with a blistering performance from Robin Wright Penn as a TV executive with serious mental stability issues, Jeff Stanzler's sophomore effort is a disturbing New York story destined to encounter resistance for several reasons.

For starters, it relies on post-9/11 anxiety and resentment to fuel its snaking, twisted plot line--a set-up likely to be perceived in some circles as sensational shock value.

Others will probably resent the picture because of the way it brazenly messes with their minds, with a whopper of a final payoff that has little respect for conventions like plot logic and dramatic structure.

Then again, any film these days that has the ability to trigger a viewer reaction other than sighs of indifference deserves to generate some distributor attention, and this Independent Digital Entertainment production (the company's previous output includes "Pieces of April" and "November"), should land an outfit willing to take the bait.

Stanzler's original story is seen primarily from the point of view of Ashade (Tunisian actor-director Abdel Kechiche), an Islamic cabdriver who gets a lot more than he bargained for when a seemingly well-heeled woman (Wright Penn) climbs into his back seat.

As it turns out, she's an exec at an MTV-style network called Q Dog TV and the creative force behind "Sorry,Haters," a hit show in which the rich and famous thumb their noses at all detractors.

He's has a Ph.D. in chemistry from his native Syria and has been providing for the illegal alien wife and young child of his brother, a doctor who was arrested on suspicion of interaction with a suspected terrorist.

When Ashade ultimately gives in and allows Wright Penn's character into his life in order to help him, he realizes too late that he's made a fatal error in judgment.

Before things plunge into a muddy logistical abyss, Stanzler creates an intriguing dynamic between the two main characters and their very different worlds, and neatly ratchets up the accompanying tension as it builds to an inevitable, explosive pitch.

Kechiche brings an empathetic, low-key charisma to his role, Wright Penn pulls off the kind of increasingly off-kilter but masterfully controlled performance that would send Glenn Close's "Fatal Attraction" psycho and Jennifer Jason Leigh's "Single White Female" sicko cowering in a corner.

“Sorry, Haters” is provocative, unpredictable and one of the few post-9/11 movies interested in exploring areas far thornier than heroism and sorrow — in this case, a woman’s longing to recapture how important she felt on that horrific day of terrorism.