The Innocent * * *

The lead character is the director and also the writer.  A bit of a Woody Allen thing going there.  Even more so, when you watch his antics and sense of humor.

The story is about Abel a man who has been widowed far too early in life. But he gets on with things. He is a marine biologist working at the aquarium. His best friend - indeed his only friend - is Clemence.  She had also been the best friend of Abel's wife and it is through their mutual grieving that she and Abel have become close.

Plot twist coming

Clemence sleeps around a lot.  She is trying fill the loneliness in her life.  

The other woman in Abel's life is his mother, Sylvie.  She too is a widow.  She spends a lot of time in prison.  Not as an inmate.  She runs a program for the inmates, teaching them drama.  The trouble is, she always grows close to one of them and has an affair once he has been released. Each affair ends in disaster.   Abel is tired of watching his mother continually go through this perpetual routine. 

At the start of the film Sylvie introduces Abel to Michel, her latest ex-con, new lover.  Abel does not like Michel and does not trust him.  However Sylvie is determined to marry him.  With the help of Clemence, Abel stalks  Michel to find out what he gets up to because Abel thinks "once a con, always a con".  He's right. 

Being a man of experience it doesn't take Michel long to find out he has a tail. He now has to decide whether to eliminate Abel or bring him on board. And if Abel comes on board, Clemence does too.  She's looking for a bit of adventure. 

The planned heist is going to require a distraction and Abel and Clemence are recruited to cause a scene by acting like an upset couple.  However, the rehearsals and the ad-libbing, bring something else out in them, which they have always know but have been trying to deny out of respect to Abel's past wife. 

With nearly every plot twist being well and truly signaled beforehand and the occasional laborious scene. it's hardly the best comedy drama I have seen, but it's an amusing diversion. 

You'd probably be better off waiting for this one to appear on broadcast or streaming.  Shouldn't be long. 

I saw it at the French Film Festival 23.