A young man and his girl wait impatiently for a dealer to provide their heroin fix. He arrives and they sink gratefully into something like oblivion. It is, in fact, oblivion for the man who is found dead the next morning. She is in a coma but recovers in hospital, finding herself pregnant. The heroin had been laced with valium.
François Ozon, the French director of The Swimming Pool and Under the Sand, has this time made a smaller-budget film, shot on high-definition stock. It is not so much an awful warning as a gentle reminder that even the oddest relationships can flourish when needs must.
Mousse (Isabelle Carré), having found herself pregnant in hospital, decides to leave Paris for a refuge in the country where she attempts to kick drugs. There she is visited by her dead boyfriend’s gay brother. He is kind and friendly, urging her to keep the baby. His partner worries that he’ll leave him for Mousse, and perhaps his fondness for her will eclipse his natural sexuality.
Carré, who was pregnant at the time of the shoot, and Louis-Ronan Choisy, the novice actor who plays her gay companion, are excellent in what is possibly the quietest, most thoughtful film Ozon has made. If The Refuge doesn’t amount to coruscating drama, it works its way under the skin simply by maintaining a complete sympathy with its characters.
The Refuge (Le Refuge)
Cert: 15
