At some moment, on a shaded late summer afternoon or a still warm autumn early evening, as you’ve been splayed on a comfy outdoor chaise lounge, a friend has handed you a glass of wine, usually a white, like a pinot grigio, announced its brand and appellation, and you’ve taken a first sip, a simplistically satisfying swallow, and while you’ve told yourself to remember the name of the wine, you’ve forgotten halfway through the bottle.
“The Grocer’s Son” is that varietal of movie.
Antoine (Nicolas Cazale) is an aimless young man in his late 20s, flitting between stints waiting tables, living in a studio apartment the size of a meager dorm room, who seems to have run away from his provincial Provence upbringing rather than towards the allure of Paris. He sports the former amateur boxer visage of a Dolce & Gabbana print model; it’s a face which could sell trousers, or remove them. His father’s sudden illness brings the adrift Antoine back to the bucolic landscape of his childhood as he agrees to help the family grocery business by driving a delivery van into the villages. Antoine invites a friend, an apartment-building neighbor, Claire (Clotilde Hesme), a 26-year-old prospective student to whom he is attracted, to come along. While she is enamored with a trip to the country, Antoine, upon arrival, is instantly uneasy and prickly, his mother and an older brother the target of his mental pins and needles. It’s not so much “Look Back in Anger” for Antoine as “Look Back in Utter Exasperation.“
Antoine and Claire drive through the winding roads of the valley, delivering eggs, peas, salami and all sorts of sundries to the mostly elderly denizens of the villages. Luckily, “The Grocer’s Son” doesn’t oversell the villager’s folksiness. In particular, the roles of Mr. Clement (Paul Crauchet) and Lucienne (Liliane Rovere) are graced with touching, real moments.
When his father (Daniel Duval) returns from the hospital, with his gouged road map of a mug replete with a pinched two-pack-a -day mouth and sideburns like a motorcycle kickstand, the story begins to illustrate the residue of his fully-formed scowl. But the film doesn’t delve into these relationships with much depth, treating details like junk food so that the frustration fraught in these family dynamics is obtuse, so you’re never entirely sure where Antoine’s disquiet comes from. The brother, a not-so-recently separated salon owner with considerable emotional difficulties, is, in particular, an unformed role in need of more insight.
Clearly, “The Grocer’s Son” could be more demonstrative, more insistent. But director Eric Guirado still crafts a film which is well-paced, attractive and solidly pleasing despite skimming on the specifics. And, to that, one can raise a glass of whatever it’s called.
