Director: François Ozon

Stars: Hélène Vincent, Josiane Balasko, Ludivine Sagnier, Perre Lottin, Garlan Erlos

Ozon’s latest, a far more restrained and nuanced offering than the enjoyably broad ‘The Crime is Mine’, begins as a fairly standard middlebrow drama before switching to something far more slippery and compelling midway. Michelle (Vincent) is enjoying her retirement in Burgundy tending to her garden and meeting up with her old friend, the bluff Marie-Claude (Balasko). Michelle is also looking forward to spending time with her adored grandson Lucas (Erlos). But when her divorced unhappy daughter Valerie (a wonderfully flinty Sagnier) turns up to drop him off for the summer, mother and daughter end up falling out, and Lucas is whisked away back to Paris. Meanwhile Marie-Claude’s wayward son Vincent (Perrin) has just been released from prison and Michelle offers him some work helping out around the farmhouse. Good intentions go awry however, and a tragic incident occurs. Ageing Michelle’s country idyl is rendered in suitably autumnal colours by director of photography Jérôme Alméras, while theatre director and actor Vincent is wonderful as the ageing protagonist as she and Ozon gradually peel the layers away to reveal the wily conflicted operator behind Michelle’s façade.

David Willoughby

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