DIRECTED BY Catherine Corsini

STARRING Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi López

With 2008’s I’ve Loved You So Long, and now this, it seems that French cinema is pushing English-born Kristin Scott Thomas towards the best roles in an already storied career.

Here, she plays Suzanne, the bourgeois wife of a well-to-do doctor, Samuel (Yvan Attal), living together with their children in the south of France. But the relationship is stale, her husband boorish.

She begins an affair with Ivan (Sergi López), an immigrant ex-con employed as a builder on the family’s property. Unable to live with the guilt, she confesses her adultery to Samuel, who retaliates with blackmail and revenge.

Catherine Corsini anchors the film with short, sharp scenes that propel the narrative rationally and irresistibly, while the performances remain credible. Suzanne is both naïve and stubborn, failing to understand why her friends and family aren’t bowled over with her newfound happiness, but equally willing to risk all to scrape for cash with her “prole”.

Chris Roberts