Showing @ Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow until Thu 27 Feb
Phillippe Claudel / France/Luxembourg / 2013 / 103 mins
Following on from his 2011 comedy Tous les soleils, director Phillippe Caludel presents this murky thriller. Wealthy surgeon Paul (Daniel Auteuil) frequently works long hours, leaving his wife Lucie (Kristin Scott Thomas) to tend their large garden and, when required, their baby granddaughter. But when Paul runs into ex-patient Lou (Leïla Bekhti) it triggers something of a change inside him.
In setting up Paul’s humdrum routine, Claudel initially falls into a tired depiction of a wealthy but unsatisfactory family life. This wearisome plotting is lifted however by bounteous imagery of vegetation, offering a grounded and peaceful contrast to the busier aspects of Paul’s professional and personal relationships. The narrative picks up when, avoiding the clichéd sexual distractions, Claudel instead comments on the opposite by exploring the different manifestations of loneliness in his characters: while Lucie and Lou are both physically abandoned, what Paul is unable to find in Lucie as a confident, he discovers in Lou as a mentor. With a frosty rapport between he and his somewhat aggressive adult son, the tutelage of Lou (paralleled in Lucie’s green fingers) is an attempt by Paul to redeem his past failings. Through the frequent ecological visuals, Claudel cleverly weaves the nature versus nature debate throughout the story. A brooding mid-life-crisis tale, where Paul’s decent into peculiarity is mirrored in the season’s chilling progression.