Parky at the Pictures (DVD 14/8/2014)

Promising agent Anne Mercier that he will be back in Paris in time for a business dinner, TV actor Lambert Wilson takes the train to the Ile de Ré, off the west coast of France. Renowned for playing a surgeon in a popular melodrama, Wilson is keen to establish his thesping credentials by mounting a production of Molière's The Misanthrope and he hopes to convince the reclusive Fabrice Luchini to make a comeback some three years after he supposedly suffered a breakdown while making a film.

Crossing the bridge linking the island to the mainland, Wilson makes light of his celebrity by leaving a message with a leading doctor after cabby Stéphan Wojtowicz tells him about his aged mother's hip injury. By contrast, Luchini argues the toss with plumber Jean-Marc Rousseau about the need to repair the septic tank in the garden of the rundown house he inherited from an uncle who disliked his 10 sons. He is surprised but pleased to see Wilson and they reminisce about the shoot in Hungary when they last saw each other six years ago.

Luchini avoids discussing his health, but shows Wilson the pictures he now paints to pass the time. Cutting to the chase, Wilson says he remembers Luchini's passion for Molière and mentions that he is planning a production of The Misanthrope in Paris. Luchini declares acting to be a vile profession, but Wilson insists that he is one of the good guys. However, he doesn't want to appear too desperate and says that brain surgeon partner Camille Japy is from the Ile de Ré and that he is in the area looking for a holiday home. Keen to change the subject, Luchini calls estate agent friend Ged Marlon and the pair are soon inspecting a property that Marlon insists would be a wise investment after major renovation.

As they look round, Luchini asks about the play and Wilson assures him that he has a producer and a theatre lined up. However, he bridles when Luchini assumes that he would take the title role of Alceste and Wilson reminds him that he once claimed that the supporting part of Philinte was more of a challenge, as scholars have always mixed up which character is the optimist and which is the cynic. Luchini is aghast that Wilson would have the audacity to offer him second billing and Wilson tries to claw things back by suggesting they could break with tradition by alternating the roles. Luchini refuses to contemplate such an arrangement, however, and it is only when Wilson is trying to find out train times that he suggests they sleep on the proposal and postpone any decision until they have had a read through the following day. Declining an offer to stay in a cluttered spare room, Wilson checks into the hotel run by Édith Le Merdy and her niece, Laurie Bordesoules. He apologises to Mercier for missing their appointment and tries to sleep, while Luchini daubs away at a canvas into the night.

The next morning, the actors toss a coin to see who reads which role and Luchini plumps for Alceste. They select a scene about spurned friendship and Wilson suggests that Luchini is attacking the text too vigorously. As they walk by the sea, Luchini admits that he confused Alceste with Che Guevara and they pop into a beachside restaurant for lunch. As they eat, Wilson confides that Luchini saved his career by giving him the confidence to stand up to a bullying director and he lays on the flattery by complimenting his interpretation of Tartuffe. They notice Maya Sansa sitting at an adjacent table and Luchini explains that she is an Italian who lives nearby.

They rehearse through the afternoon and Wilson praises Luchini for capturing Alceste's controlled anger and Luchini admits that he is impressed with Wilson's Philinte. But, while he insists that he has fallen out of love with acting, Luchin agrees to postpone a decision until the weekend and proposes that they spend the next four days workshopping the text. As Luchini goes for a bike ride, Wilson chats to Le Merdy about his TV series and discovers that Bordesoules is a porn actress who has made decent money from a handful of films. Le Merdy asks if Wilson would give her niece some acting tips and he half-heartedly agrees.

During their first session the following day, Luchini loses his temper when Wilson's phone keeps ringing and he placates him by explaining that he is arranging to borrow a house from novelist Josiane Stoléru so that he can better concentrate on the work at hand. However, the hackles are soon raised again when Wilson complains that Luchini is delivering his lines too quickly and he responds by declaiming with plodding deliberation. Wilson despairs of getting anywhere if Luchini cannot accept criticism and Luchini retorts that he responds favourably to notes that make sense before comparing Alceste's trial for mocking Oronte's verse with the persecution that drove him into exile.

During a cigarette break, Wilson asks Luchini about the rumours surrounding his breakdown and he explains that he decided to quit after being betrayed by a producer he considered a friend. They resume their labours, but it doesn't take long for Luchini to criticise Wilson's inflection and they argue about the sanctity of alexandrine rhythms and the need for audiences to understand an ancient form of language. Luchini cites iconic actor Louis Jouvet's maxim about cheating patrons unless the text is revered and Wilson takes exception to the insinuation that he is something of a small-screen ham. He protests that actors have a duty to communicate rather than be elitist, but their dispute is interrupted by Marlon arriving to show Wilson two more holiday homes.

Luchini insists on tagging along and the pair continue to bicker as they look around Sansa's house. She is tetchy and warns Marlon that she will hire another estate agent unless he secures a quick sale. Wilson tries to charm her, but she says she detests actors because they are narcissistic and dismisses Luchini's efforts to explain that his friend is famous and deserving of a little more respect. Wilson curses her as they go to see a converted windmill, only for Luchini to accuse him of being a cheapskate when he questions the asking price when he is earning €1.2 million for each series of his trashy doctor show. This prompts Wilson to lose his temper and he mocks the Ile de Ré and its microclimate and derides its blonde Catholic family vibe before falling silent when Marlon insists it's the second most popular holiday destination in France.

In order to clear the air, Luchini suggests they go bicycling and they run lines as they roll through idyllic countryside. However, Wilson is nervous about his brakes and careers into a stretch of water when swerving to avoid an oncoming moped. Luchini compliments him on his physique as he changes into dry clothes and Wilson confides that he loves Japy and her 12 year-old daughter, but isn't keen on moving in with her. Luchini delights in his isolation and wishes the bridge had never been opened linking the island with La Rochelle. Yet he concedes he is enjoying playing host and acting opposite Wilson. But he refuses to make a commitment to the play and announces that he will be late on parade the next day, as he is having a vasectomy. Wilson is bemused why a loner would need such a drastic operation and Luchini explains that he never wants to repeat the mistake of having a thankless son.

As Luchini waits at the bus stop, Sansa offers him a lift and he accepts, in spite of his dislike of women drivers. She teases him about being raised by an abusive mother and apologises for being so snappish when they first met. He concurs with her contention that actors are awful people and is sorry to learn that she is splitting up with her husband. She curses him for not wanting children and then abandoning her for a woman with a son. Furthermore, she warns Luchini about the painful after-effects a friend suffered following his vasectomy. He asks what she plans to do next and she insists she wishes to turn the page, as life is too short to dwell on the past. But, even though she is keen to move on, Sansa concedes that has grown fond of the Ile.

Having heard distant cries of pain in the waiting-room, Luchini jumps off the operating table and flees. Meanwhile, Wilson is shown around his new lodgings by housekeeper Christine Murillo and is delighted to discover a jacuzzi in the back garden. Murillo tuts about her employer using it naked and criticises the way so many houses on the Ile have been turned into retreats that could otherwise accommodate large families. As he leaves, Wilson bumps into Wojtowicz, who asks why the renowned doctor hasn't been in touch about his mother. Wilson shrugs that he has done his best and walks away, but it is clear that the cabby believes he is belittling him.

Sansa collects Luchini from the hospital and coaxes him into singing along with the car radio. They go for a walk along a stretch of deserted beach and she regrets having found a buyer for her property. Wilson cycles up and enthuses about fresh air and exercise before pedalling away. But he cannot resist teasing Luchini about romancing the future mother of his bambini, as Luchini picks vegetables from the garden. He is in such a good mood that he agrees to interrupt their afternoon rehearsal to talk to Bordesoules about acting and they joke about her taking more exception to the early hours involved in filming pornography than the indignities she is forced to endure.

Indeed, Luchini is in such high spirits that he allows Wilson to play Alceste. However, he quickly becomes irritated by his decision to limp as he reads his lines and Luchini rolls his eyes as Wilson explains that he has invented a backstory involving a cruel father and a childhood fall from a horse. Luchini stresses Philinte's lines about Alceste becoming a laughing stock and lambastes Wilson for missing the character's core hatred by trying to retain his own misguided sense of civility.

They set to squabbling again, but are disturbed by Bordesoules. She tells them that she is only doing porn to pay for her wedding. However, she has a train to catch to arrange a shoot in Bucharest and Luchini seizes upon her polite disinterest in what they are doing to insist that she watches them perform a scene from the play. She confuses The Misanthrope with Tartuffe and Luchini shoots her a contemptuous glance before revelling in a sequence in which Alceste decries Oronte for being a hack. As they turn for approval after a lively exchange, Wilson and Luchini are dismayed to see Bordesoules texting her boyfriend. So, Luchini decides to humiliate her by making her read one of Celimène's speeches and they are taken aback when she performs it with feeling. Indeed, as she hurries away, they feel sad that such a sweet girl has become involved in such a sordid industry and regret being unable to do anything to spare her future ignominy.

Alone that night, Wilson invites Japy for the weekend and goes out to try the jacuzzi. It is underlit and seems very inviting. But the water begins to bubble out of control and Wilson thrashes around as he struggles to switch it off. He regales Luchini and Sansa with the story the following day and she teasingly compares his plight to James Dean's Porsche crash. As she leaves the restaurant, Luchini invites her to supper and they shop for food at the conclusion of an amicable rehearsal montage. Luchini is impressed to see Wilson on the cover of a listings magazine and insists they catch his show that evening, as he never usually bothers with television.

Trying to ignore the smell of the septic tank, Sansa compliments Luchini on his home and settles down to watch Doctor Morange. Wilson explains the plot and admits to being proud of a couple of scenes. He doubts Luchini's sincerity when he congratulates him on the delivery of a particularly melodramatic line. But he is deeply hurt when Luchini takes a phone call from Marlon and assures him that he is not interrupting anything important. As Luchini returns to the sofa, Wilson makes his excuses and Sansa ticks Luchini off for being so callous. She wounds him by saying he lacks the purity of heart to play Alceste. But he refuses to apologise and Sansa leaves lamenting that she has misjudged him.

Next morning, Wilson cycles to the market in the nearby town in order to cheer himself up and milks the murmur of curiosity and adulation. However,Wojtowicz spots Wilson and accuses him of being a fraud because his doctor friend still hasn't phoned back But, in defending himself against a charge of not caring about the little people, Wilson ends up in a fistfight and the onlookers gasp in horror as he hurls Wojtowicz into a stall.

Wilson seeks out Luchini for some medical attention and he tries to apologise for his behaviour the previous evening. Wilson insists on reading Alceste in a scene in which he ignores Philinte's efforts to calm him down and rages against base flattery before hissing out his loathing of common humanity. Luchini is genuinely surprised by his fervour. But Wilson is in no mood to be patronised and accuses Luchini of toying with him for his own amusement. Yet, as he helps Sansa pack her books, Luchini admits that he has enjoyed acting again and has warmed to Wilson, in spite of his shortcomings. As he cycles home, he spots Wilson struggling with his bike chain and agrees to do the play. Wilson accepts on the proviso that they swap cycles and Luchini proceeds to ride into the water when trying to evade the same moped that did for Wilson.

In a sequence that references François Truffaut's Jules et Jim (1961) and The 400 Blows (1959), Sansa joins them on a ride to the beach. Wilson smiles at Luchini paddling, as he calls Mercier and asks her to bring the contracts for signing. He convinces himself that he has brought Luchini back to life and looks on benevolently as he dances with Sansa after supper. As they wheel their bikes home, Wilson jokes that Luchini will need an Alitalia loyalty card and he sings to himself as he paints into the small hours.

Luchini opens the shutters next morning with a renewed sense of zeal and strides with purpose to Sansa's place. However, he discovers that she has left without saying goodbye and, when Luchini informs Wilson, he confesses to sleeping with her after returning to fetch his forgotten phone and finding her crying on the bed. Wilson insists Sansa threw herself at him and Luchini tries to laugh off the betrayal by tutting that he could hardly have fallen in love in four days. He jokes that he won't tell Japy when she arrives and reassures Wilson that they are all adults and that these things happen.

Across the island, Japy and Mercier hail a taxi and are disturbed to learn how Wojtowicz got his black eye. Stoléru has also descended and she invites some friends for a soirée. Wilson tells her about the killer jacuzzi and she asks him to pose for some photographs to mark his stay in her home. Meanwhile, Luchini has taken receipt of a 17th-century costume and takes a long, hard look at himself in the mirror as he shaves off his stubbly beard. He cycles to the party and arrives to see Wilson working the room.

Distractedly, Luchini welcomes Japy and Mercier to the Ile and discusses rehearsal and touring details with the producer. But, when he asks Luchini to recite a few lines, he scowls that he is a thespian not novelty act. He also avers that he won't do the play at all unless he plays Alceste. Wilson is furious with him for reneging on their deal. But Luchini calmly replies that Wilson demonstrated that he knows nothing of honour when he slept with Sansa. Japy is shocked and asks Wilson to explain what has been going on, but he is more intent on trying to thump Luchini and they have to be kept apart. Recovering his composure, Luchini quotes Alceste's lines about humanity being wolves and declares that the assembled liggers and philistines deserve never to see his face again.

A fade out gives way to opening night and Japy joins Mercier in the audience. All appears to be going well, with Wilson playing Alceste to Jean-Charles Delaume's Philinte. But, as he reaches the point in the text where Luchini had criticised his inflection, Wilson pauses and realises he was right all along. He stands in embarrassment at the front of the stage and looks out at the audience, suddenly aware of his limitations. Back on the Ile de Ré, Luchini cycles to the beach. He looks out to sea and smiles to himself, as he takes pride in his hatred of humanity.

Played to perfection by Wilson and Luchini and smartly scripted and directed by Le Guay, this is a deceptively acerbic assault on slipping standards in the French acting profession and the declining importance of classic plays in an age of dumbed-down Internet access. Le Guay uses the gentrification of the Ile de Ré as a metaphor for the state of the performing arts and makes adroit use of Jean-Claude Larrieu's seascapes, Françoise Dupertuis's production design, Elisabeth Tavernier's costumes and Milou Sanner's hairstyles to emphasise the differences between Wilson's pampered tele-celeb and Luchini's self-destructive artiste.

There are dry patches and the last act is allowed to drag. But the odd moment of slapstick pricks the pomposity of the duelling `friends' and refocuses the mind before another bout of slick intertextuality. Some critics have accused Le Guay of reducing the female characters to ciphers, but the chauvinism is too rooted in the scenario for it to be anything other than dramatically relevant. Besides, both Sansa and Bordesoules have their moments, as does Le Guay, who casts a shroud of ambiguity over both Luchini's precise motivation for embarking upon what may always have been a charade and the truth about Wilson's midnight tryst with Sansa. But centre stage very much belongs to Luchini and Wilson, whose byplay is a masterclass in both scene-stealing and generosity that leaves one hoping against hope that a Hollywood producer hasn't hit upon the idea of reworking the picture around The Iceman Cometh as a vehicle for Will Ferrell and Al Pacino.

American film-makers have frequently sought to capture the essence of French cinema. But, while they seem simple, pictures like auteur Philippe Garrel's 24th outing, Jealousy, are deceptively complex. Engaging, visually ravishing and frequently touching, this semi-autobiographical saga marks the fifth occasion that Garrel has cast his son Louis as his leading man. Yet, even though it runs for a mere 77 minutes, this still contains the odd longueur.

In the five decades since he debuted among the last flickering embers of the nouvelle vaguei with Les Enfants désaccordés (1964), Garrel has consistently explored themes of intimacy and alienation and demonstrated a singularity of vision that has been described by critic Tony McKibbin as `voyeurism of the soul'. Whether working alone or as part of the Zanzibar collective, Garrel's conviction that the moving image equated to `Freud plus Lumière' made him a darling on the festival circuit and a cult figure within French cinema, alongside the likes of Jean Eustache and Maurice Pialat. Yet, while he was championed by Jean-Luc Godard and hailed as the cine-Rimbaud, Garrel's rarefied style was also supposedly the inspiration for the mocking Monty Python sketch, `French Subtitled Film'.

The son of actor Maurice Garrel, he collaborated frequently in the 1970s with German lover Nico (of Velvet Underground fame) on such pictures as The Inner Scar (1972), which comprises a mere 23 mostly static shots of Nico, Garrel and Pierre Clémenti (amongst others) walking slowly through arresting landscapes in Sinai, Death Valley and Iceland. By contrast, the six year-old Louis Garrel made his acting bow alongside his father and grandfather in Emergency Kisses (1989), which chronicles the fallout when a famous director plans a film about his own life and upsets wife Brigitte Sy by casting rival actress Anémone as his screen spouse.

Dedicated to Nico and seemingly riven with autobiographical regret, I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar (1991) provides a more elliptical look at the breakdown of a marriage, as it follows Parisian couples Benoît Régent and Johanna ter Steege and Yann Collette and Mireille Perrier on holiday to the Italian coast. Replete with wordplay, Heidegger references, poetry recitals and a score by John Cale, this teases all the more by co-starring Garrel's now ex-wife, Brigitte Sy, as the mistress in whom Régent seeks solace when Ter Steege starts blowing their money and their happiness on heroin.

Love, need and heroin are also to the fore in Night Wind (1999), another collaboration with John Cale that sees artist Xavier Beauvois cling to housewife Catherine Deneuve before her insecurities prompt him to take a road trip with 60s relic Daniel Duval. And this treatise on desire, disillusion and self-destruction finds echo in Jealousy, which is screening at the Ciné Lumière in London alongside the aforementioned titles in a short season devoted to Garrel.

Eight year-old Olga Milshtein wakes in the night and wanders out of her bedroom to hear mother Rebecca Covenant begging partner Louis Garrel not to leave her. She backs away from the keyhole, as she sees her father approaching, and rushes back to bed as he slouches out through the front door. A caption reading `I Looked After Angels' signals the passage of several months and Milshtein returns home after spending the day with her father. She shows Covenant the pictures she has drawn and seems to be coping with the separation much better than her mother.

Garrel has also moved on and is sharing a garret with Anna Mouglalis, a fellow actor who is struggling more than he is to make her name on the Parisian stage. When they meet up at a café, she listens to him chatting with pal Arthur Igual about their co-star, Manon Kneusé, and forces a smile when they tease her about how pretty she is. As they walk home, Mouglalis kisses Garrel. But she is not the only one he wraps up against the cold in his jacket, as, a few days later, he coddles Milshtein as they wait at a bus stop and they also walk along hand in hand as the light fades.

But Milshstein has to content herself with going home to Covenant, who only has her daughter's excitement for consolation. Garrel feels a touch envious himself when Mouglalis takes him to visit Robert Bazil, an academic who befriended her when she bought a signed copy of his biography of Russian polymath Vladimir Mayakovsky. She washes the old man's feet before he goes for a nap and joshes Garrel as he looks on. However, he gets his own back when she drops into the theatre and sees him flirting with Kneusé. As a consequence, Mouglalis abandons a lunch date with Florence Payros to rush across town to check Garrel is not cheating on her back at the flat. She is relieved to find him alone and he is charmed and concerned by her suspicion.

Six years have passed since Mouglalis last landed a role and Garrel tries to cheer her up after another failed audition. However, when he leaves for the theatre, Mouglalis goes to a bar and picks up stranger Julien Lucas when they go outside to smoke. She slips away from his apartment before Garrel gets home and perhaps covets the room she has just seen, as she bangs her head on a cupboard in frustration at having to live in such a tiny space. Garrel wonders if she still loves him and tries to make her feel better by introducing her to Milshtein. They spend a day in the park and Mouglalis defies Garrel by buying Milshtein a lollipop from a kiosk.

She also lets her keep her hat and Covenant is nettled by her child's enthusiasm for the woman who stole her father away. Yet, when Milshtein asks awkward questions about the break-up, Covenant protects Garrel and also retains her composure when Milshtein says how cool Mouglalis is and scoffs at the fact that Covenant had stayed in all afternoon tidying her room and making soup. Realising she might have hurt her mother's feelings, Milshtein asks if they can have the same kind of `communal sandwich' she had enjoyed with Garrel and Mouglalis and Covenant agrees before spending the evening sewing alone.

Across Paris, Garrel kisses Kneusé backstage and Mouglalis senses something is wrong when she wakes to his touch. He insists that he adores her and they embrace. But the second chapter heading, `Sparks in a Powder Keg', suggests that something ominous is about to occur and Mouglalis is not a good enough actress to convince when she insists she is happy when Garrel returns from a few days away, during which time she had cheated on him at another backstreet bar.

Garrel gets a visit from his sister, Esther Garrel, who wishes she had a better memory of their father. However, as Garrel sits in his dressing-room, middle-aged stranger Emanuela Ponzano pops her head around the door and introduces herself as an old flame of his father's and he tries to be polite. He is still feeling nonplussed when Mouglalis gets home from dinner with old friend Sofia Teillet and announces that architect Eric Ruillat has offered her a job as his archivist and Garrel is disappointed that she is going to give up on her acting dream for such a dull office post.

Lounging around backstage, Garrel surprises co-stars Igual and Jérôme Huguet by saying he would blow his brains out if Mouglalis ever left him. But, when he gets home, he finds her ranting about her lack of light, space and happiness and she orders him to get a properly paid acting job or return to the real world. Refusing to compromise his lifestyle, Garrel takes Milshtein to the pictures and, during the screening, touches the hand of the woman sitting next to him. As they leave, Mathilde Bisson scribbles her name and number on her cinema ticket, but he tears it up because Milshtein keeps pestering him to call her, as he feels one stepmother is more than enough.

On returning home, however, he finds a note from Mouglalis stating that she needs some time to herself. Failing to understand the gravity of the situation, Milshtein accuses Garrel of being jealous and slaps him across the face. But, rather than lose his temper with his daughter, he tickles her and they have a play fight. As she gets ready for bed, Milshtein asks Garrel if he loved his father more than he loves her and he says not. But he is confused about what he feels for Mouglalis and goes to see old tutor Jean Pommier, who informs him that he was always better at understanding the characters he was playing than the people he knew.

Mouglalis tries to matchmake Garrel's sister and Ruillat over lunch, but they don't seem to hit it off. However, Garrel senses something is going on when Mouglalis shows him around a spacious apartment that has been given to her as a gift by an admirer. He asks if she is trying to hurt him and sulks throughout a dinner party she hosts at the garret for some friends. As Garrel tidies up, Mouglalis starts packing a bag because she has another man waiting for her and he is appalled that she could remain so calm during supper when she knew she was going to desert him. Refusing to listen, Mouglalis storms out and Garrel goes for a walk after pacing the room in considerable distress.

An abrupt cut reveals a gun on the table and the shirtless Garrel snaps the clip into place and knocks off the safety catch before stepping out of shot to wound himself in the chest. His sister visits him in hospital and admonishes Mouglalis for not coming to see him. He says he wants nothing more to do with her and Esther urges Louis to stay strong before slipping in the news that he has been fired from his play.

As he recuperates, Garrel goes strolling with Milshtein. They bump into Kneusé, who has been cast in a major production. She promises to call him, but he has his doubts as he sits on a park bench and waits for his sister to catch up with some snacks. Milshtein inquires Garrel what he did before she was born and then asks Esther why she hasn't had a baby. She laughs and confides that they are very expensive and offers Milshtein some nuts. That night, Garrel feels alone in his garret and the picture ends as he switches off the light.

Gloriously photographed in atmospheric monochrome by Willy Kurant, edited with finesse by Yann Dedet and scored with mischievous charm by Jean-Louis Aubert, this could have been made at any time between 1959 and 1967. Indeed, if it wasn't so intensely serious in its depiction of la vie bohème moderne, this could easily be mistaken for a pastiche. The tousle-haired Louis does his father proud, as does Milshtein in the role that was inspired by Garrel père's own childhood experiences. She particularly excels in her scenes with Covenant, who would seem to have done well to have held on to Garrel for so long, as he is clearly an emotionally immature narcissist who meets his match in the even needier and more detached Mouglalis.

Garrel and co-writers Marc Cholodenko, Caroline Deruas-Garrel and Arlette Langmann have stuffed the scenario with moments of poignant naturalism, excruciating pretentiousness and clumsy melodrama. But, while the scenario might have benefited from being as spartan as Manu de Chauvigny's sets, Garrel sticks to what he knows best in impressionistically dissecting domestic and romantic mores. He struggles to accommodate the majority of the secondary characters, but ably conveys the incestuousness of the Parisian creative scene, while also capturing human foible and durability with an evidently still painful ring of truth. Thus, while this may not be Garrel's finest film, it's still always a treat to see something new from the ever-dwindling band of nouvelle vaguers.

While Garrel was never perhaps an enfant terrible, he did start young and it is not pushing things too far to compare him to Xavier Dolan. Not everyone is convinced that this French-Canadian actor-director is the wunderkind he clearly believes himself to be. Since debuting at the age of 20, the onetime child star has already completed the `impossible love' trilogy of I Killed My Mother (2009), Heartbeats (2010) and Laurence Anyways (2012). Now, he moves on to Tom At the Farm. Yet, even though such productivity at such a young age is remarkable, many continue to dismiss Dolan as self-indulgent and self-obsessed. Abjuring the flamboyance that characterised his first outings, this fourth feature feels closer in tone to a Patricia Highsmith novel or an Alfred Hitchcock thriller. But, even though it has been adapted from a play by Michel Marc Brouchard, this is still very recognisably a Dolan picture. Yet, while he still can't quite resist giving himself a surfeit of close-ups, Dolan demonstrates an edgy new finesse that pushes his neo-noir melodrama in the direction of Claude Chabrol's masterly dissections of prejudice and hypocrisy.

Mourning the death of his lover, Caleb Landry Jones, Xavier Dolan travels from Montreal into the Quebecois countryside for the funeral. As the landscape changes, Frida Boccara's Gallic version of `Windmills of Your Mind' plays on the soundtrack and it is clear that Dolan is not looking forward to the ordeal for all sorts of reasons. Arriving at the remote farmhouse to find no one home, Dolan lets himself in and dozes off at the kitchen table, where he is awoken, some time later, by his boyfriend's ageing mother, Lisa Roy. She was clearly not expecting Dolan and has no idea of the nature of his relationship with Jones. But Dolan plays along that he is a close friend who wanted to pay his last respects and even agrees to say something at the service the following day.

As he sleeps that night, Dolan is roughly roused by Jones's older brother, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, who threatens him with dire consequences if Roy ever finds out that her son was gay. He explains how he has created a fake girlfriend to keep Roy from becoming suspicious and Dolan readily agrees to do nothing that will distress his hostess. The next morning, however, he decides against giving a eulogy and there is an awkward silence before priest Jacques Lavallée continues with the requiem.

As Dolan visits the bathroom after the committal, he is confronted by an angry Cardinal, who assaults him for upsetting Roy. Dolan tries to apologise, but realises he needs to get back to the city as soon as possible. Unfortunately, his luggage is still at the farm and Dolan has no option but to return home with Cardinal and Roy. The next morning, he wakes to find the tyres have been removed from his car and Cardinal tells him that it would be nice if he could stay a little longer and console Roy, who is disappointed that Jones's partner failed to make an appearance at her boyfriend's funeral.

Seeing this is a way to extricate himself from the situation, Dolan calls friend Evelyne Brochu and begs her to pose as Jones's beloved to appease Roy and convince Cardinal that he has done his duty. But Brochu's arrival fails to have the desired effect, as Roy has already taken against her and Cardinal has no intention of letting Dolan leave so easily. Thus, he bundles Brochu on to a bus and lets Dolan know in no uncertain terms what will happen if he tries to abscond again.

In spite of himself, Dolan is aware that he is becoming attracted to the muscular Cardinal and is even beginning to derive pleasure from his roughhousing. But he sidles into town that evening, where bartender Manuel Tadros regales him with the story of how Cardinal had disfigured a gay patron in an a frenzied attack a few years earlier. Unsure whether Cardinal is homophobic or self-loathingly closeted, Dolan decides to make a run for it the following day. However, he hasn't got far on foot before Cardinal catches him up in his SUV. He chases Dolan through the woods, but the twentysomething doubles back and steals the car to make his getaway. When he stops for petrol, however, he recognises the man Cardinal maimed and beats a hasty retreat.

Dispensing with the jukebox songtrack approach that has reinforced the trendy ambience of his previous pictures, Dolan makes mischievious, if occasionally self-conscious use of a Gabriel Yared score that owes much to the kind of lowering accompaniment that Bernard Herrmann used to compose for Alfred Hitchcock. Moreover, he also allows André Turpin's camera to wander around interiors and exteriors alike in order to convey Dolan's entrapment. Indeed, he even tinkers with the aspect ratio a couple of times to stress how much his options are narrowing.

This may all sound a bit gimmicky, as, when compared to the excesses of Laurence Anyways, this is a masterclass in restraint. Yet Dolan isn't simply pulling in his horns to get the sceptical critics off his back. This curtailing of directorial flamboyance also suits the situation, as the grieving Dolan has to rein in his urban exuberance to perpetuate the myth of Jones's heterosexuality But what is most ingenious about this correlation of theme and technique is that it gives Dolan a clean slate for his next project. This would appear to be called Mommy and the mind races with the possibilities that the quicksilver 24 year-old might be preparing to mine. But this stylistic shift suggests considerable artistic maturity and one hopes that Dolan will continues to work in tandem with a more experienced writer to help him resist narratorial temptation.

In truth, some of the dialogue in this latterday fairytale is a bit stagy and the proscenium positively hovers over sequences like the barn tango. Dolan also needs to work on his acting, if he is to concentrate on weightier issues. But he invests the action with a jagged vein of dark humour and, even if characters frequently behave irrationally to the point of recklessness, this makes for consistently discomfiting viewing, both on account of its depiction of provincial bigotry and the suspenseful treatment of Dolan's fate.

We head south for Mexican Amat Escalante's third feature, Heli. Having served as an assistant to Carlos Regados on Battle in Heaven (2005), Escalante made a reasonable impact with Sangre (2005) and Los Bastardos (2008). But this is a much more mature work, as it takes generic tropes, roots them in the harsh reality of daily life and invests them with an aesthetic grace that makes the pitiless events all the more harrowing. Far from an easy watch, but also eschewing exploitation, this is a throwback to the unflinching social realism that made Latin American cinema so compelling around the turn of the century.

Seventeen year-old Armando Espitia lives in the arid northern region of Guanajato with wife Linda González and their infant son. They share the house with his father, Ramón Álvarez, and Espitia's 12 year-old sister, Andrea Vergara, who is besotted with army cadet Juan Eduardo Palacios, who is the same age as Espitia and wants Vergara to elope with him so they can get married. However, she resists his constant sexual advances, as she is scared of getting pregnant. But she is enchanted when he gives her a white terrier puppy she names Cookie. Espitia also disapproves of their romance (after discovering it from a flick cartoon drawn into the pages of her exercise book), as his own year-long marriage has not worked out particularly well and he has to work night shifts at the local car plant (while Álvarez does days) to make ends meet.

As part of a crackdown, Palacios's unit is ordered to make a show of destroying contraband in a bid to demonstrate that crime doesn't pay. Drugs and a variety of counterfeit items are tossed on to a large bonfire, but Palacios steals two bags of cocaine and hides them in the water tank on Álvarez's roof. He hopes to sell them to make enough money to pay for their escape, as he detests life in uniform and is forced to wallow in his own vomit as part of an initiation task. But Espitia finds the stash and locks his sister in her room after disposing of the powder in a drinking pool for cattle. .

Later in the evening, the premises are raided by crooked cops and Álvarez is killed while trying to defend his home. His body is dumped by the side of a deserted road, as Vergara is taken away on her own and Espitia and Palacios are dragged into a secure house, where teenage boys look away with dead eyes from a computer game playing on a giant screen to watch Palacios endure a ferocious cricket bat beating for stealing the drugs. Espitia is spared the severity, but he is also punished and has to watch on as Palacios is suspended from a hook and has his genitals set alight.

Once the torture is over, Palacios is handed over to some men who hang his corpse from a pedestrian bridge as a warning to anyone else thinking of challenging authority. Badly shaken, Espitia goes to the police station and reports his experience to detectives Reina Torres and Gabriel Reyes (who also co-scripted). But, while they help him recover Álvarez's body, they also suspect him of being a dealer and try to coerce Espitia into signing a confession that would incriminate himself and his father.

He returns home to deal with the trauma alone. Already reluctant to have intercourse since the birth of her baby, González becomes increasingly disturbed by his morose and erratic behaviour,.particularly after he is fired from his job for repeatedly losing concentration. Yet, when Reina comes to interview him again, she intimates that she would not be averse to an affair. But, while Espitia is tempted when she bares her breasts in her patrol car, he resists and Reina closes the file when she discovers that Vergara was Palacios's girlfriend.

Some time later, Vergara returns home. She is unable to speak and pregnant having been raped by her attackers. However, she draws a map to show Espitia where she had been hidden and he follows the route and beats to death the man he finds living there, without waiting to discover if he had anything to do with the travesty. Returning with a slight sense of closure, Espitia rediscovers his gentle side and, as he makes love to González that night, Vergara cradles her baby nephew in the next room, with sunlight pouring in through white net curtains that billow in the gentle breeze.

So much recent Mexican cinema has examined the grip the drugs trade has on the nation and the corruption of the law enforcement agencies detailed to tackle it. But, while the majority have adopted a combustible approach, Escalante has opted to show how decent people get dragged into the sordid business. He leaves us in no doubt that things are going to become gruelling, as the opening shot shows Espitia and Palacios bound and gagged on the back of a truck with a boot planted firmly on Espitia's skull. But he resists the cartoonish gunplay that has characterised many pictures on the theme and eschews the inclusion of a cackling druglord who takes sadistic pleasure in exacting his revenge on those who have tried to cheat or betray him. However, he lacks the steely detachment that makes Michael Haneke's depictions of barbarity so punishing. And he may have gone too far in turning Espitia into a cold-blooded killer. But, at least, he lays the groundwork to ensure such a development seem credible.

Always prone to lengthy takes, disconcerting camera moves and elliptical juxtapositions, Escalante also indulges in some dubious moments of animal cruelty, as he strives to show that humans are treated no better than beasts in this godforsaken country. Yet, there is a crucifix on the wall of the drug den, along with a girlie calender and various other items that testify to the complex mix of machismo and credence that underpins this savagely civilised society. But, while there can be no doubting Escalante's sincerity in wanting to alert the wider world to the chaos crippling the country, he does revisit an awful lot of ground already covered by similar specialists in grinding despair as Gerardo Naranjo. Consequently, despite the admirable performances of the largely non-professional cast and the remorseless simplicity of Lorenzo Hagerman's painterly cinematography, the most indelible impression is that of Palacios's grizzly evisceration rather that of the recuperating Vergara and the intimation that the future may well be in the safer hands because those who have suffered will surely not allow the madness to continue.

The prospect of a better tomorrow also looms in Half of a Yellow Sun, playwright Biyi Bandele's adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's prize-winning novel that charted the most turbulent decade in Nigerian history between the granting of independence in 1960 and the collapse of the short-lived Republic of Biafra in 1970. Clearly made on a limited budget, this lacks the scope to be the African Gone With the Wind. But, in abandoning the multiple perspective that made the source narrative so complex and compelling, the debuting Bandele has produced an eviscerated version that will leave fans disappointed and those coming to the story for the first time underwhelmed.

Despite utilising monochrome newsreel clips to sketch in the historical background, Bandele fails to identify the time shifts that are so crucial to the plot. Moreover, he struggles to avoid lurching between moments of potent import and soap opera, with the result that fictional tragedies and factual calamities are given equal weight and, thus, fail to convince or engross. It also doesn't help that the performances are of such a varied quality or that too many key characters are demoted from their significance in the book to become ciphers who either move the action along or are expected to shoulder major developments without the backstory to merit the audience's concern. Yet, for all its imposed linearity and trivialising of tribal and political involution, this has a sincerity that brings it closer in tone to Merchant-Ivory than Nollywood.

Fresh from completing their education in Oxford and Yale respectively, twins Thandie Newton and Anika Noni Rose return to the Lagos home of their wealthy Igbo parents just as independence is confirmed on 1 October 1960. They disappoint their businessman father over dinner by refusing to fawn over the newly installed finance minister and skip off to a soirée to mark the new dawn. Newton is soon to leave for the provincial town of Nsukka to take up a university post beside her revolutionary boyfriend, Chiwetel Ejiofor, while Rose is set to take over her father's companies in Port Harcourt. So, they are determined to enjoy what might be their last night together for some time. However, Rose is distracted by English writer Joseph Mawle and Newton teases her sister for her weakness for white boys before heading off to visit her beloved aunt and uncle before joining Ejiofor and his trendy academic friends.

Newton also makes the acquaintance of Ejiofor's 13 year-old orphan houseboy, John Boyega, and despairs at the quality of his cooking. However, she soon realises that he is an ally when Ejiofor's formidable mother, Onyeka Onwenu, comes to stay with her companion, Susan Wokoma, and accuses Newton of being a witch because she didn't suckle at her mother's breast. Deeply offended, Newton returns to her flat, where Ejiofor tries to make amends by suggesting they have a child together. However, he impregnates Wokoma instead when Onwenu sends her to his room and, in a bid to exact a modicum of revenge, Newton seduces Mawle, who is also in Nsukka to study the local culture and embark upon a novel.

When Wokoma refuses to have anything to do with her daughter, Newton agrees to help raise her and patches things up with Ejiofor. But she falls out with Rose when her manservant blurts out that Ejiofor and Mawle had almost come to blows and Rose realises that her sister has betrayed her. However, simmering tensions between the Igbo and Hausa peoples are exacerbated by a failed coup in January 1966 and a series of massacres follow in the north, as it is perceived that the Igbos have benefited from the imposition of military rule by General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi. Newton is powerless to save her aunt and uncle from the slaughter and she is only just swept into a car by her minder as machete-wielding gangs run riot through the town.

Returning to Nsukka, Newton sees Ejiofor arguing with non-Igbo colleagues like Genevieve Nnaji and they decide to move south to reside in the breakaway Biafran state run by Igbo colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu. Mother Onyeka Onwenu urges Rose and Newton to join her in London with their father, but Newton insists she cannot leave Ejiofor and his daughter, while Rose is determined to safeguard the family assets in Port Harcourt. On 6 July 1967, however, Nigerian troops invaded the secessionist state and began a war of attrition that would lead to the country being plunged into famine. The relentless advance also proved pitilessly violent. But, while Onwenu refuses to leave her village, she is sufficiently concerned to beg Newton to marry her son. She agrees, but their celebration is disrupted by a mortar attack and they are forced to seek refuge in the town of Umuahia.

As Newton and Ejiofor struggle to survive in the face of air raids and food shortages, Rose takes over the running of a refugee camp and Newton suspects she is profiteering from the misery of others. But, when Onwenu is butchered and Ejiofor is threatened by thugs when he tries to get home to bury her, the sisters are forced to reconcile and Newton and Ejiofor relocate to the camp. They go without Boyega, however, as he was press-ganged while out shopping and it is soon presumed he has perished with a child unit of Ojukwu's army, whose resistance begins to crumble as the famine worsens and Nigerian forces continue to capture strategic towns. Desperate to restore the supply line to the camp, Rose takes her life into her own hands by venturing into enemy-held territory. But she is never heard from again, as the republic surrenders and a series of captions informs us of the future fate of the principals.

This hurried, muddled and melodramatic denouement sums up the problems blighting this sprawling saga. Despite being acclaimed for his 1997 stage version of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, the British-based Bandele only had a single short (The Kiss, 2009) to his credit when he started on this ambitious project and his inexperience at structuring a film story, building a scene and directing actors for the screen is evident at almost every turn. He is well served by production designer Andrew McAlpine, costumier Jo Katsaras and cinematographer John de Borman. But Ben Onono and Paul Thomson's score is far too emotive, as are many of the secondary performances. By contrast, American singer Anika Noni Rose is unconvincingly stiff in a role that is too frequently marginalised, as is true of Boyega's houseboy, who is pivotal to the action in the book.

Indeed, even Ejiofor is frequently consigned to the sidelines, as Bandele elects to turn his primary focus on Newton, whose character is often reduced to being a Biafran Scarlett O'Hara. Newton is a dependable actress, but she isn't always up to the challenge of carrying this imposing tale. It's hardly her fault that it's left to her fashions and hairstyles to clue the audience to important historical developments, but she does struggle to elicit sympathy for a character who starts out being spoilt and becomes increasingly capricious before she finally uncovers some nobility. However, the primary fault lies with Bandele's screenplay, which not only relies over heavily on swathes of expository dialogue, but which also tries to squeeze enough incident for a mini-series into a feature that lacks the scale to do either the story or the period justice and the cinematic nous to replicate the scope and ingenuity of Adichie's book.

The constant threat of violence also informs When I Saw You, Annemarie Jacir's follow-up her sombre treatise on exile, Salt of This Sea (2008). Set during the aftermath of the Six Day War in June 1967, which saw Israeli forces seize the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, this rite of political and personal passage is perhaps inflected a tad too much with the spirit of the Summer of Love to convince entirely. But Jacir and French cinematographer Hélène Louvart make evocative use of the forbidding landscape to contrast the wistful dreams of a 11 year-old boy and the harsher realities appreciated by his adult companions.

Driven out of their homeland by the Israeli advance, Mahmoud Asfa and his mother Ruba Blal seek sanctuary in the Harir refugee camp in Jordan. Such was the chaos caused by the conflict that Blal lost touch with her husband and she keeps having to reassure her son that he will find them. Handsome and alert, but unable to read or write and highly fussy about his food, Asfa is a difficult child. Blaming Blal for driving his father away, he smashes up their meagre belongings during a tantrum and teacher Anas Algaralleh has no qualms about excluding him from the camp school, even though he has a natural affinity for mathematics.

Thus, after listening to Yasser Arafat on television and having seen classmate Fadia Abu Ayash's older brother, Waleed Ramahi, leave the camp with fedayee Saleh Bakri, Asfa convinces himself that he also has to escape if he is ever to return to his village and find his father. While Blal is working as a seamstress, Asfa wanders out of the camp and into the desert beyond, using the shadow cast by a stick as his compass. He is given some pomegranates by a kindly old lady and follows a flock of sheep in the hope that all roads eventually lead to Palestine. But he is taunted by a trendy Jordanian twentysomething whose car has broken down in the middle of nowhere and is, thus, on his guard when Bakri finds him sleeping rough on the edge of the Dibeen Forest and escorts him to a covert fedayeen encampment.

Asfa immediately feels at home among the guerillas and sternly taciturn commander Ali Elayan takes a shine to him and lets him to stand at his side during training drills, as Asfa has an eye for a shirker. But he is determined to press on and has to be persuaded by Bakri that he would be better off as part of a unit than alone. A campfire sing-song seems to settle the boy, who is also relieved to see Ramahi among the recruits. Moreover, he quickly becomes adept at playing cards and impresses fellow warriors Ruba Shamshoum, Ahmad Srour, Firas W. Taybeh, Husam Abed, Ammar Abu Shawish, Bashar Al Khallaylleh, Shereen Zoumot and Ossama Bawardi with his quick wits.

They are disappointed, therefore, when Blal tracks her son down and demands that he returns home with her. Elayan reassures her that Asfa is safe and is not only good for morale, but has also found his purpose in life. She watches him interact with his comrades-in-arms and is amused when Elayan ticks them off for playing cards and listening to bourgeois music on the radio. Bakri (who has developed a crush on Blal) also convinces her that Asfa is fine and that she is better protected here than she would be at Harir. But this sense of security frustrates Taybeh, who thinks they should be engaging with the enemy and he sounds off in front of Asfa when they go on a mission to collect a sackful of grenades from a secret contact. Back at the camp, Asfa starts learning the oud and demonstrates a talent for painting propaganda pictures. Blal is touched when he presents her with a portrait and lets herself to be coaxed into dancing with Bakri around the campfire. She also allows herself a smile when Asfa joyously discovers that Elayan is also illiterate. But she frets that he is still too young to be fetching the grenades and learning how to make bombs. After all, he is still a child, as his game with bullets dressed as soldiers testifies. Moreover, danger is never far away and the camp has to be hurriedly struck one morning and refuge sought in some nearby caves when an army patrol comes perilously close to finding them.

Yet nothing seems to faze Asfa and he has to be ordered to stay behind when Elayan selects a small group to carry out the first military assault. He takes out his frustration on Blal after he sees her chatting with Bakri and accuses her of making his father so miserable that he has no intention of coming to fetch them. That night, he slips out of the tent and strikes out across country. He reaches the border and hides behind a rock to calculate how long it takes for an Israeli jeep to complete a circuit. As he turns round, he sees Blal, Bakri and Elayan taking cover further up the hillside and signals with his eyes that he knows what he is doing, as he makes a dash for the unguarded wire fence. Blal runs after him and catches him by the hand. But, instead of stopping him, she hurries on with him until a climactic freeze frame leaves their fate undecided.

There seems to be little ambiguity in this final shot, but Jacir laces the action with a sense of undaunted hope and defiance that is personified by the mettlesome Asfa. With his wide eyes and the dash of devilry that leavens his intensity, the 13 year-old debutant makes a compelling hero. But his reckless naiveté contrasts starkly with Elayan's cautious bellicosity and sombre realisation that the Palestinians can only offer rearguard resistance rather than reclaim their ancestral territory. Jacir clearly recognises this, yet, by viewing things from Asfa's perspective, she runs the risk of romanticising the situation. She also keeps the female fedayees very much in the background and sidesteps the issue of maternal control by making Blal so passive in the face of Asfa's revolt against her authority. But, driven on by a breezy selection of period Arab pop songs, this makes an accessible introduction to the complex topic of deracination and the way in which displaced children so readily took up a cause that remains just as important to their grandchildren.

It's much harder to get a grip on Singapore in Anthony Chen's debut feature, Ilo Ilo, which is set in the Lion City in 1997 and keeps threatening to offer insights into the socio-political make-up of this fiercely protective enclave, but consistently loses its nerve and retreats into diegetic cosiness. The winner of the Camera d'or at Cannes for the Best First Feature, this is a genial coming-of-age saga, with a poignant migration subplot. But, despite the spirited performances, this always feels a little lightweight and too often relies on contrivance to kickstart the action or ease it out of a diegetic corner.

Although life isn't always easy, lower middle-class Chinese couple Chen Tian Wen and Yeo Yann Yann are doing okay. He works as a salesman for a glass company, while she is a secretary at a shipping firm. Yeo is also expecting her second child and persuades Chen that they need to hire a nanny to keep an eye on 10 year-old son Koh Jia Ler when he gets into trouble at school for attempting to cover up his own misdemeanour by accusing a teacher of abusing him. Chen is reluctant to fritter hard-earned cash, but consents to twentysomething Filipina Angeli Bayani moving into their cramped apartment.

Koh is less than impressed at being given a minder and he tries to frame Bayani for shoplifting. However, when he breaks his arm after being involved in a traffic accident while trying to run away from Bayani, Koh becomes increasingly dependent upon her. Moreover, when she starts a water fight to cheer him up after stripping him naked for a shower, Koh sees an ally rather than an adversary. Indeed, he even starts listening to Pinoy pop and gobbling up Bayani' spicy cooking, which he says he prefers to Yeo's bland cuisine.

As economic conditions begin to deteriorate, Chen loses his job and has to take a pay cut in order to work as a nightwatchman. Yeo is also concerned, as overseas workers are being laid off by her company and they can't afford to lose her wage. Bayani is also facing a crisis, as her sister back in the province of Ilo Ilo is reluctant to keep caring for her child and drunken husband and informs Bayani that she will need extra money to make babysitting bearable. Bayani takes a secret second job at a Filipino hair salon and begins to feel the strain of burning the candle at both ends. Indeed, when Koh makes an inappropriate remark about a neighbour who has committed suicide, Bayani slaps him and he is devastated at having disappointed her.

Chen confesses to Yeo that he has lost some of their savings playing the stock market. But she also incurs an unwanted expense when she signs up to a self-help course that turns out to be a scam. Bayani sympathises, but Yeo is becoming increasingly irritated by the closeness between the maid and her boy and things come to a head when Chen gets into more trouble at school. Unable to contact either Chen or Yeo, Bayani meets with Indian principal Jo Kukathas and pleads with her not to expel Koh for beating up a classmate. However, Yeo bursts into Kukatha's office and not only upbraids Bayani for assuming a parental role, but also ticks her off for wearing one of her cast-off dresses (which she had earlier given her to try on or donate to a charity shop).

Aware he is indebted to Bayani, Koh escapes with a humiliating corporal punishment in front of the whole school at assembly. But their friendship is brought to an end, when Chen quits his job after an accident and he decides to fire Bayani, as he has no idea when he will be able to findn more work. Koh is overwrought and snips a lock of Bayani's hair in the taxi to the airport. Following an emotional farewell, Koh goes back to his room and listens to Bayani's favourite Pinoy songs. Chen smiles indulgently, but the future remains uncertain, as Yeo gives birth to a second son.

Highly enjoyable, if somewhat anaemic, this is clearly a deeply personal project for Anthony Chen, who was brought up by a Filipina nanny before training at the National Film and Television School. It arrives here festooned with prizes. Yet it lacks the cutting critique and satirical subversiveness that made Chilean Sebastián Silva's The Maid (2009) so memorable. Chen strives to draw attention to the social restrictions that abound in Singapore, as well as the class and racial tensions that moil beneath its carefully cultivated surface. But he seems as intent on not offending as he does making trenchant points and, consequently, his analysis of a complex and controlled environment is frustratingly superficial in comparison to the more pugnacious offerings of Eric Khoo, Jack Neo and ageing enfant terrible, Royston Tan.

The Chinese title translates as `Mom and Dad Are Not Home', yet Chen struggles to exploit the duality this implies by failing to make the most of the Ilo Ilo subplot. Indeed, Bayani's private life almost feels like an afterthought, with the sequences of her making calls from public telephones and sneaking out to her second job having no wider narrative significance. It is also never explained why she has to return to the Philippines after the family dispenses with her services. Surely, she would be better off financially remaining in Singapore and finding another job. But Chen provides too little information on the gravity of the looming economic crisis for viewers to read between the lines.

Chen is more forthcoming about his own juvenile shortcomings, as Koh is depicted as a spoilt brat, with a quick temper and a nasty streak that sees him strive to land others in trouble at every opportunity. The debuting Koh plays him admirably in the face of Yeo's peevish neglect and the excellent Bayani's tough love. But Chen overdoes the recurring gag about baby chicks and also allows Koh the odd moment of winsomeness that Hirokazu Koreeda denied his young leads in Like Father, Like Son (2012). Similarly, there is a dubious hint of misogyny in the accusations of henpecking that Chen Tian Wen hurls at Yeo Yenn Yenn (whose actual pregnancy during the shoot necessitated a plot change) when his status as breadwinner is jeopardised and in the spiteful way in which Yeo treats Bayani when she feels usurped in both her husband and son's affections. This has moments of wit, charm and sweetness. But, while cinematographer Benoit Soler has a real feel for the place, Chen seems indifferent to establishing an authentic sense of time and this aggregation of nagging flaws makes the feel-good sentimentality of the denouement feel more than a little unearned.