Head of the Department of Security of the Canton of Geneva, Caroline Gautier gets ready to pick up a former Guantanamo prisoner. His arrival results in some very strong reactions, hostile demonstrations by merciless political adversaries and complications caused by the very tense Chinese ambassador and an American emissary who is likewise unimpressed. This complicated day is shot by two film students who think they are getting a simple portrait of a politician…

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Laurent Nègre’s initial strategy is good: filming a diplomatic crisis close up, with a Swiss politician caught up in the middle of it, presented as a mockumentary to draw the audience into the action and muddy the line between fiction and reality. Confusion sells itself as quite interesting, somewhere between a thriller and a satire, with the always good Caroline Gasser in the lead. Except that the formula doesn’t work: Confusion has a hard time finding the right tone, dithering between a light touch and serious politics. The plot soon turns clumsy and loses its grip, becoming less and less entertaining. It finally bogs down at the end, never finding its way back up to the level of its beginning.