Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.
Prolific french auteur Francois Ozon returns with a quicksilver dark comedy that sees Fabrice Luchini play Germain, a literature teacher faced with gifted 16-year-old pupil Claude (Ernst Umhauer).
Encouraged, Claude pens a series of essays about his classmate, Rapha, and his family – which the voyeuristic Germain delights in reading to his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas).
Needless to say, as fiction and reality blur, it all gets très messy, as Ozon vividly explores ideas of manipulation and authorial control.
Utterly assured, breathtakingly executed and riotously funny, this is a delight.
