Arnaud Desplechin’s whirlwind dramedy doesn’t fully reject Christmas joy, but it does give the undersung holiday traditions of dysfunction and discomfort their time in the spotlight. Starring a formidable French cast, this festive film’s thorny exterior makes way for little glimmers of tender hope.
Winner of the Europa Cinemas award at Cannes (a top prize in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar), La Moustache is an eerie psychological drama in the spirit of Kafka with shades of Hitchcock, building outward beguilingly from the most simple—and bizarre—of premises.
This sensuous and haunting tale of love betrayal is built around an extraordinary performance by the award-winning French star Emmanuelle Devos. In his devotion to the period’s atmospherics, director Frédéric Fonteyne lovingly brings to life 1930s France in this fraught drama of unconditional love.
