God's Thunder

Léandre Brassac is a foul-mouthed, cantankerous vet living with his wife Marie on a large estate out in the country. He listens to nobody and answers to nobody. One day he takes in a young woman whose life has come apart and sets about protecting her. The decision strains things with his wife and puts him on the town's tongue, and the old man has no intention of putting down a responsibility he chose himself. Denys de La Patellière's film is a characteristic late Jean Gabin part: a growler, hard on the outside, soft further in. It is adapted from Bernard Clavel's novel. Michèle Mercier plays the young woman and Robert Hossein the man out of her past. Rather than delivering a moral verdict, the film shows that doing good does not leave anyone in peace either.