That amazingly prolific film-maker François Ozon returns with an intriguing, if tonally uncertain, mystery drama about a suspected murder. In it, the implied Chabrol-esque horror is made to coexist with an odd mood of gentleness and even sentimentality as we witness the loneliness of an ageing woman with secrets and regrets in the autumn of her life.
This is Michelle, played by 81-year-old actor-director Hélène Vincent; at one point, Ozon allows us to notice she is reading a book by Ruth Rendell, whose thrillers were famously adapted by Claude Chabrol (La Cérémonie, The Bridesmaid) and indeed by Ozon himself (The New Girlfriend). This film is not a Rendell adaptation, but I wonder if Ozon and his co-screenwriter Philippe Piazzo were inspired by the Rendell short story Means of Evil, which also involved mushroom poisoning and a fall from a balcony.
Michelle lives in the countryside, near her best friend, Marie-Claude (Josiane Balasko), whose grownup son Vincent (Pierre Lottin) is nearing the end of a prison term. Michelle has a tense, unhappy relationship with her recently divorced and permanently angry daughter Valérie (Ludivine Sagnier) but adores her grandson Lucas. They come to stay and Michelle inadvertently serves them poisonous mushrooms that she has picked in the nearby forest, and Valérie has to be taken to hospital. (The plot rather unconvincingly explains why it’s only Valérie who eats the mushrooms: Lucas says he doesn’t like them and Michelle says her appetite is ruined by Valérie’s bad temper.)
Once discharged from hospital, Valérie furiously leaves, taking Lucas with her, all but accusing of Michelle of trying to kill her and swearing to stop her ever seeing Lucas again. And when moody Vincent gets out of jail, he feels an intense loyalty to Michelle, who tries to help him financially – and his outrage on her behalf at Valérie denying access to Lucas leads indirectly to disaster, in the course of which Michelle’s own secrets are disclosed.
It’s an interesting, strange film, with a key moment withheld from the audience – and yet its omission, and the resulting ambiguity and mystery, is something we are almost supposed to forget about. There are imaginary “ghost” apparitions that do not bring a stab of fear and guilt as they may in a more obvious crime thriller, but a kind of bland unease. Michelle is clearly capable of ruthlessness, lying and obstructing the course of justice, and perhaps she is guilty of a kind of unintended, delayed murder. But the film invites us to ignore this dark side to her and the dysfunction she has (at least arguably) implanted in Lucas in favour of a bittersweet sadness. For all this, the puzzle is diverting.
• When Autumn Falls is in UK and Irish cinemas from 21 March.
