Le Refuge review

On the run, with a bun in the oven

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After boyfriend Louis ODs, pregnant junkie Mousse (Isabelle Carré) retreats to the coast to recover. But refuge isn’t easy when her protruding belly is a magnet for unsavoury types.

François Ozon’s latest is a slight but sensitive study of a woman coming back to earth with a bump. Literally: Carré was six months preggers during the shoot.

The narrative’s flimsy, but Ozon’s intimate HD camerawork mainlines Carré’s palpable emotion, blurring hormonal instinct into acting craft for a rounded portrayal of Mousse’s conflicted impulses: irritable and increasingly awestruck.