French Film Festival — A–Z of films

With enjoyable performances, particularly from Lacoste and Gallienne and a decent stab at an 'importance of friendship' message underlying the laughs, Asterix is pleasant company, even if this isn't quite as magic as his potion.

This is a challenging and rewarding piece that reflects your own thoughts as much as those of the filmmaker.

Self indulgent, nonsensical and soulless scenes are woven together into a sentimental fog that hovers above the surface of a faux world, past and present.

Franju is carefully slicing along the line where the concrete rigours of modern science intersect with the abstractions of youth, beauty and ephemerality.

Small-town prejudice and the fear of otherness are roundly exposed for their absurdity, but the sensitivity of the artistic disposition and even the importance of good dental care are also sensibly celebrated.

Poupaud and Clement subtly delineate their character’s changes while maintaining an intensity that keeps the audience involved amid all the flashy distractions.

Pirot has crafted a sweet, if slight debut, that suggests more and better to come.

Joachim LaFosse's film builds, inexorably, to an ending that we know from the start is coming.

A fun, lighthearted and above all confident film that lovers of the rom-com are likely to adore.

It might not be a Renoir, in either of the two historic senses, but it is an elegant and enjoyable drama filled with beauty, passion and a near sublime gentleness of spirit.

The pace of the film, like the turning of the seasons, country life and the shift in control of the Bras empire, is slow, but no less enthralling for that.

This is a film of two halves, with the half involving sweetness and light muddled and limp in comparison to its tougher, more sinister flipside, while the ending is almost unforgivably trite.