Le Vieil Homme et l'Enfant

Berri's fictionalised memoir - the Jewish child, Claude, billeted on a curmudgeonly old anti-Semite, was the director himself in the final months of the World War II Occupation - wears its heart stitched on to its sleeve like a Star of David. But, though compromised by the facility with which its glib antitheses (old age/childhood, country/city, Gentile/Jew) are reconciled by the (un)likely friendship of the ill-matched pair, the film's good humour and discretion, plus Simon's virtuoso performance, make it never less than watchable.