ABDELLATIF Kechiche's loosely structured, naturalistic drama - a tale from the north African community of southern France - has won plaudits on the festival circuit and last year scooped four gongs at the César Awards.
It turns out to be a solid piece of faux verite in the style of the French miserablist Robert Guédiguian. Following an aging fisherman's attempts to rebuild his life after an unwanted redundancy, Couscousbegins with a confident flurry of beautifully judged, superbly acted vignettes before collapsing into ill-judged mayhem in its excruciating closing section.
Habib Boufares, a man whose face bleeds stoicism, stars as Slimane Beiji, paterfamilias of a cacophonous Arab dynasty. Separated from his wife, who is said to make the best couscous in the town, he currently lives in a waterside hotel owned by his new lover.
After receiving bad news from his employers, Slimane and Rym (Hafsia Herzi), the hotelier's young daughter, hatch a plan: they will refurbish a rundown ship and open it as a restaurant. After some prodding, the rest of the Beiji clan come round to the scheme.
In the opening scenes, Kechiche displays a significant talent for weaving complex narrative into the apparent chaos of family life. A noisy banquet, shot using insistent close-ups, serves petty tensions alongside the steamed grain and grilled fish. The excellent actors, mostly non-professional, manage the difficult business of throwing around various spicy insults - Slimane's Russian daughter-in-law suspects her husband of serial infidelities - while allowing the Beiji dinner table to remain a joyful place.
Then something peculiar happens. The film's last act focuses on the opening night of the floating restaurant. Just as the local gentry and civic officials are warming to the experience, the couscous pot goes missing. The hero sets off on a small vehicle (a motorbike, not an Austin 1100) to recover the food while his family seek to entertain the impatient punters.
Sound familiar? The final hour of the film constitutes an achingly overextended, tonally uncertain restaging of the Gourmet Night episode of Fawlty Towers. But, rather than Polly singing songs from Oklahoma!, we are offered the dubious spectacle of the teenage Rym writhing erotically before several drooling musicians. What begins as a belly dance ends as a gruesomely inappropriate combination of strip tease and circle jerk.
Dear, dear. It's such a shame when a rotten dessert spoils an otherwise delicious meal.
DONALD CLARKE
