Un Mauvais Fils

Wan Bruno (Dewaere, remember him from Les Valseuses?) returns from five years' imprisonment in the US for drug dealing. His father (Robert) greets him gruffly and gives him a place to sleep, but festering resentment comes to the surface. He blames Bruno for his wife's early death, and hates his son's 'cowardice'. Rejected, Bruno gets a job in a secondhand bookshop, alongside another ex-junkie, Fossey. They fall in love, and inch by inch he begins to reclaim some self-respect. Made in 1980, this characteristic relationship drama by Claude Sautet (Un Coeur en hiver and Nelly and Mr Arnaud were to follow) feels older than that, especially in its casual treatment of drug addiction. The love story is considerably less interesting than the father/son drama, and the film has an overlit TV look, but Sautet's patient, softly-softly approach pays dividends, and you end up caring about the apparently unprepossessing Bruno. As for Dewaere, he shot himself in 1982.