Following the death of her childhood best friend Laura, Claire (Anaïs Demoustier) checks in on Laura’s widowed ex-husband David (Romain Duris) and baby only to find... Adapted from a 1985 Ruth Rendell short story, François Ozon spins this discovery into an engaging treatise on deception, fetish and sexuality.
Duris shines in the showier part but Demoustier provides the film’s heart as she slowly embraces David’s secret. The filmmaking is exemplary — Claire and Laura’s friendship is brilliantly sketched — but most impressive of all is the tone that mixes comedy, melodrama and darkness before finding an earned note of feel-good at the end.