There are almost 50 movies screening in this year's Alliance Francaise French Film Festival, which makes its way around the country this month. Here, in no particular order, are some of the best on offer.
Mon Roi
Tony (Emmanuelle Bercot) reflects on her protracted break-up with ex-husband, Georgio (Vincent Cassel), whilst enduring months of physical rehabilitation after a knee reconstruction. Maiwenn’s story of this toxic relationship is exhausting but authentic, thanks entirely to the chemistry between its two leads: when they’re in a good place, they’re annoyingly in sync, but when things turn sour, they’re unbearable. Not an easy watch, but a rewarding one.
Emmanuelle Bercot and Vincent Cassel play doomed lovers in 'Mon Roi'. Source: Cannes
Marguerite
Catherine Frot was a well-deserved Best Actress Cesar winner for her turn as Marguerite Dumont, a wealthy socialite whose enthusiasm for singing opera is proportionate to her complete and utter lack of talent. An inner circle of sycophants keep her oblivious to ridicule, until a rave review (written sarcastically) provides the impetus for Marguerite to realise her fantasy of staging a public performance. Xavier Gannoli’s satire manages to be both razor sharp and bittersweet, and Frot brings a quiet dignity to the act of hitting bum notes, loudly.
Watch Catherine Frot talk about the appeal of Marguerite's "marvellous obliviousness"
Catherine Frot misses her high notes by a country mile in the delightful 'Marguerite'. Source: Transmission Films
The Measure of a Man
Craggy everyman Vincent Lindon is unable to catch a break in Stéphane Brizé‘s The Measure of a Man, a timely social drama about the fraught process of seeking- and then keeping- a job within a rigged system. An unintentional companion piece to Dardennes Brothers’ Two Days, One Night (2015), The Measure of A Man profiles the effects of unemployment on hard-working husband/father Thierry (Lindon), whose eventual job as a department store head of security demands that he compromise his principles.
Vincent Lindon in 'Measure of a Man' Source: Cannes
Dheepan
In Jacques Audiard's understated Palm d’Or winner, three strangers flee Sri Lanka at the end of the civil war, and pose as a family in order to gain refugee status in France. Ex-Tamil Tiger Dheepan hides his past from “wife” Dalini and “daughter” Illayaal and as each adapt to their new life in a rundown housing estate, they inch towards the closeness they’ve been faking to others. A dispute between drug gangs awakens Dheepan’s violent impulses, and threatens to spark an entirely different kind of civil war.
Watch Jacques Audiard talk about how he sees 'Dheepan', which won the Palme d'Or in Cannes last year, as optimistic
Jesuthasan Antonythasan stars in 'Dheepan'. Source: Cannes
Boomerang
Francois Favrat is heavily influenced by Hitchcock movies, and it shows, in the Rebecca-like domestic mystery, Boomerang. Two siblings (Laurent Lafitte and Melanie Laurent) embark on a search for answers about the unexplained death of their mother, 30 years ago at the remote family estate. A solid whodunnit based upon the book 'A Secret Kept', with a memorable cameo from New Wave great, Bulle Ogier as an obstinate family matriarch.
Watch director François Favrat discuss his love of Alfred Hitchcock, and the influence of 'Rebecca'
Laurent Lafitte and Melanie Laurent are siblings on a quest for answers in 'Boomerang'. Source: Unifrance
Fiona Williams had an early glimpse at the program when she participated in the annual Rendevous with French Cinema as a guest of Unifrance.
