The Innocent review – hardened cons go romcom in appealing French caper

In this droll French-language caper, Abel’s much-married mother has finally found love, with an inmate at the prison near Lyon where she teaches drama. This is not the first time this has happened. Abel (Louis Garrel, deploying his full repertoire of weary eye-rolls and shrugs) is determined to protect his mother from her own bad judgment. He ineptly stalks her newly released husband Michel (Roschdy Zem), cheered on by his best friend and colleague at the local aquarium, Clémance (Portrait of a Lady on Fire’s Noémie Merlant). Unexpectedly, he finds himself charmed by the charismatic Michel, despite his initial reservations. Soon, the neurotic, twitchy Abel finds himself rubbing shoulders with hardened ex-cons, some of whom are not as reformed as they claim to be. The film (which Garrel directs as well as stars in) gathers a madcap momentum, in the way that really bad life choices are apt to do.