Directed by Lukas Moodysson. Starring Gael García Bernal, Michelle Williams, Marife Necesito, Sophie Nyweide, Jan Nicdao, Martin Delos Santos, Maria Del Carmen 15A cert, The Screen, Dublin, 126 min

Lukas Moodysson delivers a surprisingly lucid art-house tragedy, writes DONALD CLARKE

ONE OF the more intriguing careers in world cinema takes another surprising turn with this problematic, slippery but ultimately powerful melodrama.

In recent years, Lukas Moodysson looked to have gone just a little bit barmy. After arthouse successes such as Show Me Love and Together, the Swedish director turned nasty with Lilya 4-Ever, nastier with A Hole in My Heartand plain weird with the wilfully abstract Container.

The surprise with Mammoth is that, though charged with tragedy, it features a lucid story and sane, empathetic characters. The film is, perhaps, more than a little schematic. But it still permits nuance and debate.

It’s also in English. Gael García Bernal and Michelle Williams play a sleek New York couple who have, almost without noticing, got caught up in a very contemporary sequence of neuroses. Working every hour of the day, they leave their daughter in the care of a kindly Filipino nanny who, in order to serve the needs of these beautifully rich people, has travelled miles from her own lonely son.

The balance between characters and situations is certainly a tad too neat. Williams, an emergency surgeon, is an archetypal carer. Bernal, something to do with the internet, exemplifies the fuzzy nature of so much contemporary work. While mother tries to interest the child in science, the nanny introduces her to old-school religion. Meanwhile, dad messes about on a seemingly pointless business trip many miles from home.

So Mammoth is an old-fashioned, emblematic morality tale? In a sense. But, as you might expect from this director, it also shoulders a weight of constructive ambiguity. Shot in gorgeous widescreen, featuring a seductive soundtrack, Mammoth invites a spectrum of meditations on the challenges of remaining moral in a busy, distracting universe.

The actors do a fine job of shaking off conventional character tropes – businessmen on mobile phones, doctors failing to save that one vital life – and bring genuine humanity to a scenario that could have played like an animated think piece.

But what of the accusations that the film, by showing children suffering while mothers work, is straying close to Daily Mail politics? Well, in this century, it hardly needs to be said that such responsibilities fall equally on men and women. Moodysson is, after all, Swedish. That nation moved on from those gender stereotypes quite some time ago.

So, Mammothis more interesting than it sounds. It's Babelwithout the chewed scenery. Keep your eye on Moodysson. He's not done surprising us yet.