Every year a group of friends pack themselves off to a beach house for sun, sea and a great deal of wine.
But this year, in Guillaume Canet's film, which stars his wife Marion Cotillard, they arrive a bit ruffled. Their colleague Ludo (Jean Dujardin) has had a bad motorbike accident and they feel guilty leaving him behind in a coma.
We are treated to nearly three hours of their company, telling each other little white lies as they interact, each seeming unable to express or fully articulate their feelings or grief. These members of the bourgeoisie are sometimes charming but often tiresome, which only adds to the long-windedness of it all. But if this is the kind of skilfully manipulated French film you like, you will not be surprised that some four million people have paid good money to see it in France.
The cast is impressive: besides Cotillard and Dujardin, there's Benoît Magimel as the married Vincent, who decides he fancies Max (a tight-arsed, macho control freak), and Laurent Lafitte as the recently jilted Antoine who bores everyone stiff picking over the past.
Everyone seems to be obsessed with mobile phones, text messages and computers, even on holiday in a beautiful area of France. They are also obsessed with themselves.
Perhaps Eric Rohmer could have made more of this than Canet, a former actor who is now a director as well (Tell No One, for example). I would bet on a dreadful American remake, anyway.
Little White Lies (Les Petits Mouchoirs)
Cert: 15
