Le torrent

It seemingly looks like a thriller made before the sixties or a Chabrol -like work ,although it features the cliché you find here there and everywhere in the French contemporary cinema : the prodigal father , who divorced his teenage girl's mom ,who of course has so brilliantly succeeded he deals with Japan ,no less! Of course the new wife is modern , all-smile, educated and genial .And the half-brother is adorable .Hunky dory for the "feel good" movie which mars the French scene.

But with the accidental death of the mother , this actually turns into a tragedy ;it could have been a psychological drama a la Simenon:but the characters are cardboard ,and an excellent actor such as José Garcia is wasted in this part of the prodigal but tremendous father ; the plot is rather poor and never generates any real suspense ; the trick of the computer is hackneyed ,and only a moron would leave intimate-and I mean intimate- photographs in a computer without an access code Consequently , the mysterious lover threatens to no avail .For good measure , in the tradition of Peter Lovesey , Anne Le Ny casts herself as the police chief.

Let's accentuate the positive : the cinematography ,which takes advantage of the mountain landscapes is splendid indeed ;all that concerns Darius after his mother's death rings true: his calls, his use of the mobile :he's certain she'll come back.

But the most interesting character is portrayed by seasoned André Dussolier ,who plays the amateur detective :after all he had played three times Agatha Christie's Beresford notably in "mon petit doigt m'a dit" ("by the pricking of my thumbs") in which Le Ny also appeared at the time!

Average-to-good.