French filmaker André Téchiné's 'In the Name of My Daughter' is a very watchable drama based on real events in the 1970s which include the still unexplained disappearance of Agnès Le Roux, daughter of the owner of a Nice casino. Téchiné's film is notable less for suspense (there is none) than for a teasing and very rewarding ambiguity towards the motives of the three highly-driven principle characters.
In fending off business rivals, Renée Le Roux (Catherine Deneuve) greatly values the insightful advice of attorney Maurice Agnelet (Guillaume Canet), while her daughter Agnès (Adèle Haenel), recently divorced, finds him appealing for other reasons. So how is it that, 30 years later, Renée insists to the police that her onetime right-hand man be extradited from Panama for her daughter's murder?
Meticulously charting how the relationships between all three shift steadily from friendship and love to suspicion, hostility and betrayal, Téchiné displays the cool, clear-eyed intelligence – though not, sadly, the beady wit – of the late Claude Chabrol. The performances are solid, too, though the age difference between the two female leads may strike some as a little disconcerting.