When Fall is Coming: French Hitchcockian homage lacks seasoning

This week it’s the turn of the versatile Francois Ozon, a director best known for his strong, female characters. Like Michelle in When Fall is Coming.

Actually, the title varies depending where you are.

In some places it’s When Autumn Falls, but where “fall” already means “autumn” they’ve had to go with the clumsier title. No matter – both titles are pretty meaningless.

We meet Michelle out foraging for mushrooms with her friend Marie-Claude. She’s invited her daughter Valerie and grandson for lunch.

We’re told Michelle and Valerie don’t get on. In fact, if it were up to Valerie she’d keep young Lucas from his grandmother permanently.

But she needs another favour from her mother. More money, in fact. Michelle is hurt – I already gave you my flat in Paris, didn’t I? Valerie responds with a gallic shrug.

Best friend Marie-Claude is sympathetic, she too has problems with her own ne’er-do-well son, who’s just recently come out of jail.

We’ve both failed our kids, says Michelle as she returns home only to discover an ambulance outside. Valerie ate something that disagreed with her.

Of course, it was the mushrooms. That’s the problem with foraging in the woods – good mushrooms and bad ones often look very similar.

Michelle is distraught – particularly when Valerie uses the culinary mishap to take Lucas back to Paris with her.

The dispute escalates. Valerie is convinced the mushroom incident was deliberate, that Michelle set out to murder her and get custody of Lucas.

Michelle’s friends, even the police, rally round her, assuring her they know these accusations are baseless.

But in a Hitchcock thriller, things are not always what they appear. Why is Valerie already so implacably angry with her mother, particularly since she’s done so well out of her?

And how did a lovable little old lady like Michelle do so well for herself, with no obvious means of support?

Enter a new element – Vincent the aforementioned ne’er-do-well son of Michelle’s friend Marie-Claude. He seems an unusual choice to mediate between the warring mother and daughter.

And when Vincent offers his services to Valerie, she orders him to stay out of their business.

The plot thickens, but as in all Hitchcockian mystery-thrillers, once all the twists and turns have been laid out on the table, all will be made clear - to us, if not to the authorities.

And it isn’t until more than one Autumn falls that it finally makes sense.

So, is it worth the wait? The lead performance by veteran French stage star Hélène Vincent has been rightly praised at home – as much for what she keeps hidden as what she reveals.

But it’s a mushroom soufflé that’s a fraction under-seasoned to me. It needed a few more Hitchcock shocks and surprises, I thought, to finish it off.

Listen to Simon Morris review the latest films in At The Movies, available here or on Sundays at 1.30pm on RNZ National.