New York's Rendez-Vous With French Cinema — A–Z of films

The film’s fast flowing current carries a number of character messages we can fish out, as if they were polished by the stream, all shiny and specific.

Binoche gives her all, stripping away any vestiges of actressy pretence to assimilate herself in the community while at the same time investing her performance with an authentic conviction.

Although this film has no body count, it carries with it all the danger of an erotic thriller.

Desplechin eases us into the goings-on without sacrificing any of Roth’s complicated and thorny subject matter.

François Ozon makes what could have been an impossibly painful subject more palatable but nonetheless affecting.

Hold Me Tight [has] the sensorial acuteness to abduct us straight to the place where, providentially or not, poignant life decisions are being forged and the creations of new realities begin when the world around seems to collapse.

The juxtaposition of showing a woman who so carefully and artfully constructs every aspect of her life with the totally natural performances of the children, especially little Ninon, adds great dimension.

Audiard captures the fluid nature of relationships for a younger generation navigating both on and offline opportunities and, because this is French, it also features plenty of gracefully worked sexual encounters.

There's a subtlety to all this that speaks well of Meyer's thoughtfulness - she never goes for easy options such as having one character be prejudiced against the other, instead simply allowing a respectful attitude to grow into an increasingly strengthening bond.

For Aurélia Georges, going back to 1914 in Secret Name is not only a pretext for a story about class emancipation, but, above all, female emancipation.

There will be plot developments involving kidnap, the loot as ransom and a gunfight but those are really just the action icing on the cake of what is, at heart, a character study and a dissection of friendship.

A film that celebrates the joy and fears associated with youthful lust, while exploring ideas of internal cultural conflict, without making it feel tacky or like a diatribe.