Les Petites Vacances

Nouvelle Vague muse Bernadette Lafont is mesmerising as a grandmother on the run in this finely wrought, leisurely debut from Olivier Peyon. After taking her two semi-estranged grandchildren for a mini-break in the Alps, Danièle (Lafont) can’t bring herself to return the pair to their parents. What begins as a wretched attempt to reinstate herself into the kids’ lives soon develops into a cry for help as holiday turns to road-trip turns to journey into the abyss. Though Danièle first appears jolly and sympathetic with a certain veiled intrigue, she’s a balancing act that Peyon doesn’t quite pull off: he and co-writers Cyril Brody and Gladys Marciano feel duty bound to explain away her emotional maladies in order to keep a tight leash around the audience’s neck when a looser, more conflicting character would have been more satisfying. Still, even though the precisely layered, Jenga-tower narrative becomes tiresome towards the end, punches that could have easily been pulled in the final scenes make firm and full contact.