ALIAS BETTY []

Grandmother dearest. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 101 minutes. Not rated (sex, violence). At the Lincoln Plaza, the Quad and the Sutton.

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HOW’S this for a nutty mother?

She’s visiting her successful single daughter, Betty (freckle-faced Sandrine Kiberlain), in a Parisian suburb when her 4-year-old grandson dies in an accidental fall from a window.

So she kidnaps another boy of the same age from his abusive, barmaid mother (Mathilde Seigner) and brings him home as a substitute for the dead child.

Veteran French filmmaker Claude Miller takes that basic story and weaves it together with stories about the kidnapped boy’s mother and other characters and comes up with a stylish thriller.

Miller, who started out as an assistant to Francois Truffaut, is adept at bringing out the best in his actresses – Kiberlain, Seigner and, as the nutty grandmother, Nicole Garcia.

Despite a contrived ending that brings together all the film’s characters, “Alias Betty” is inventive filmmaking.