The Student and Mister Henri

Henri is a widower who wants to be left alone, and his failing health gives his son Paul the excuse to make him take a lodger into his large Paris flat. The lodger is Constance, a student who keeps failing exams and being told about it by her father. Then Henri proposes a deal: six months rent free if she seduces Paul and breaks up his marriage to Valérie, the daughter in law Henri has never been able to stand. What saves the film is that it does not treat the consequences of this repulsive arrangement lightly. Constance accepts, the marriage really does come apart, and nobody gets to wave it off as a comic accident. Ivan Calbérac adapted it from his own 2012 play, which had been a stage hit. Claude Brasseur plays Henri, and Noémie Schmidt won best newcomer at the 2016 Cabourg Film Festival as Constance. Its limit is its origin. Most of it happens inside one apartment and the theatrical framework shows. Who it is for: fans of French chamber comedy. Who it is not for: anyone tired of the grumpy old man formula.