Atom Egoyan’s strange, provocative B_The Adjuster_b seems to transpire in a limbo between reality and fantasy, where questions of identity become slippery. Noah Render (Elias Koteas) is an insurance adjuster who plays savior to men and women whose lives have been uprooted by tragedy. His clients look to him for comfort, sexual and otherwise, and he obliges them all, losing his own identity in the process. Noah’s wife, Hera (Arsinee Khanjian), is a censor for the Canadian government, who spends her days watching pornographic films which she secretly videotapes for her sister-but not for the purpose of titillation. Into their already deracinated lives (they live in a model home in an abandoned housing development that resembles a movie set) come two even stranger people, Bubba and Mimi (Maury Chaykin and Gabrielle Rose), a wealthy couple who spend their money staging elaborate erotic fantasies to sustain their relationship. Posing as a filmmaker, Bubba takes over Noah and Hera’s home as the setting for their latest, and most dangerous, immersion in playacting. Egoyan (“Family Viewing,” “Speaking Parts”), a 31-year-old Canadian of Armenian descent, is the most original filmmaker to emerge from north of the border since David Cronenberg (“The Fly,” “Dead Ringers”). His insinuating black comedy deliberately keeps you off balance, but its cold-sweat weirdness isn’t gratuitous: there’s a firm intelligence behind every elegant frame, posing disturbing questions about the unmoored, voyeuristic nature of contemporary life. “The Adjuster” combines compassion and creepiness in haunting ways: one hasn’t seen these people or these places before, but by the end they may seem disturbingly familiar.

Don’t be put off by the graphically violent opening scenes of B_One False Move_b. This low-budget crime thriller isn’t a hyped-up, sensationalistic exploitation movie. It begins on the tense L.A. streets, where three drug-dealing partners-the cool black psycho Pluto (Michael Beach), the white trash Ray (co-writer Billy Bob Thornton) and his mulatto lover Fantasia (Cynda Williams)–viciously dispose of a family. But as it moves to the sleepy Arkansas town of Star City, where the local sheriff, " Hurricane" (Bill Paxton), and two L.A. cops (Jim Metzler and Earl Billings) await the return of hometown girl Fantasia and her cohorts, “One False Move” evolves into an engrossing character study full of psychological and sociological surprises. The gung-ho “Hurricane,” who’s seen one too many TV cop shows, seems at first a likable but dim small-town stereotype. But one of the pleasures of the smart Thornton-Tom Epperson script is how its plot twists keep changing our perceptions of the characters without sacrificing the story’s considerable tension. Director Carl Franklin is a talent to watch: he gets subtle, textured performances from his fine cast; he knows how to let a scene breathe; how to create dread without strong-arming the audience. And on the subjects of racism and crime and the way the rural and inner-city experiences are linked, this modest film noir has a lot to say between the lines of its action plot. Check this sleeper out.

Heavy is the one word that best describes most recent Russian films which tend to be wracked with angst and wrapped in symbolism. Fortunately, the delicate, Chekhovian B_Adam’s Rib_b is a happy exception. It’s a poignant, funny chamber piece that examines three generations of Soviet women living on top of each other in a drab big-city apartment. Nina, played by the wonderfully expressive Inna Churikova, is a twice-divorced 49-year-old museum guide about to embark on an affair with a shy suitor while simultaneously tending to her mute, bedridden mother and her two daughters from different marriages. They, in turn, are immersed in their own romantic agonies. The beautiful Lida (Svetlana Ryabova) is having an affair with her married boss, while the no-nonsense, prematurely cynical 15-year-old Nastya (Maria Golubkina) discovers that she’s been impregnated by her floundering ex-soldier boyfriend. Ukrainian director Vyacheslav Krishtofovich treasures these women, but his affection for his characters extends as well to the hapless men, all of whom (ex-husbands included) show up to celebrate the grandmother’s birthday, bringing this intimate and perceptive film to its quietly astonishing conclusion. Vladimir Kounine’s rich, pithy screenplay, set in the waning days of communism, is adapted from the novel “House of Young Women”; it could also be a seen as a companion piece to Francine du Plessix Gray’s study of beleaguered, indomitable Russian matriarchy, “Soviet Women.”