Deerskin

Quentin Dupieux's seventh film, and it is over in seventy-seven minutes. Some know Dupieux from music; he makes electronic records as Mr Oizo and began in videos and advertising. Georges is a middle-aged man. He has left his wife, spent his savings on a suede jacket, and begins talking to it. The jacket has one wish: that nobody else in the world should have a jacket. The comedy comes from the film never explaining any of it. Nobody asks Georges why he is mad; a woman working in a village bar believes he is a director and volunteers to edit for him. Jean Dujardin plays Georges and Adèle Haenel plays Denise, the bar worker. It opened the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes in 2019 and was released in France on 19 June. Who it is for: viewers who like dry, cold absurdity that refuses to explain itself. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a reason. The film declines to build logic and gets progressively harder; better to watch it without knowing where it lands.