The Grocer's Son

Rating:

* * *

Verdict:

Slightly forced but mostly charming French story of a young man coming to terms with his family's past.

The opening scene of this small and often sweet family drama promises much. Antoine (Cazale) arrives at the hospital bedside of his father (Duval), who has had a heart attack. The disaffected 30-something son lives in Lyon and someone needs to help Mum (Goupil) out at the family grocery business in rural Provence. Antoine's brother Francois (Guerin-Tillie), who has problems of his own, wants Antoine, who turned his back on the family a decade ago, to pull his weight at last. In a few brief exchanges of dark looks, dialogue writer-director Guirado evokes years of hurt and disappointment and misunderstanding.

Before long Antoine is at the wheel of the family's lumbering grocery van as it negotiates the dusty back roads. This is not the picture-postcard, tourist Provence: rusting car wrecks sag in long grass and his clientele are mostly lonely and elderly. But they are a feisty lot, demanding customers from whom Antoine must learn how his father conducted business: a tin of peas for half a dozen free-range eggs, for example, and a generous slug of home-made pastis to sweeten the deal.

He learns something from them about life, too, of course, and his reserve melts further when Claire (Hesme), his gamine next-door neighbour, follows him from home.

The film, a surprise hit in France, is pretty lumbering in the way it depicts their relationship. What she sees in the self-absorbed grump is a bit of a mystery; I found myself wanting to give him a bit of a slap and telling him to cheer up.

In cinematic terms it's also an odd and not entirely comfortable mixture of the down-to-earth and the arty which sometimes gives it a forced, affected look.

The stars of the show are Rovere and Crauchet as two of the grocer's older customers, each charming for entirely different reasons. They act the socks off the kids.

Peter Calder

Cast:

Nicolas Cazale, Clotilde Hesme, Daniel Duval, Jeanne Goupil, Stephan Guerin-Tillie, Paul Crauchet, Liliane Rovere

Director:

Eric Guirado

Running time:

96 mins

Rating:

M (offensive language) In French with English subtitles