Fanny

This is the second film, after ‘Marius’, from writer-director-star Daniel Auteuil in a planned trilogy of adaptations of three 1920s and ’30s-set plays by Marcel Pagnol. Essentially, it’s a direct continuation of the first film, in which Marius (Raphaël Personnaz), the son of a Marseille bar owner, has to decide between Fanny (Victoire Bélézy), a young woman with whom he’s been friends since childhood, and the allure of the open sea. Like ‘Marius’ before it, ‘Fanny’ is desperately old-fashioned in its view of cinema and life, but this instalment has slightly more life to it, since it’s mostly free of the sparkless chemistry between the young actors in the titles roles. Pleasingly, there’s also more for the veteran actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin to sink his teeth into as Fanny’s much older suitor.