Directed by Benoit Delépine and Gustave de Kervern. Starring Gérard Depardieu, Isabelle Adjani, Yolande Moreau, Miss Ming, Anna Mouglalis, Albert Delpy Club, QFT, Belfast; IFI, Dublin, 87 min

Shambling Gérard Depardieu makes an endearing hero in this predictable but bittersweet road movie, writes TARA BRADY

SHAGGY, trèsgrand and looking not unlike Mr Snuffleupagus, Serge Pilardosse (Gérard Depardieu) is a man on a mission. He hasn't missed a day's work in 10 years at the pork slaughterhouse, but compulsory retirement, a lifetime of casual labouring and a golden handshake package that runs to a 2,000-piece jigsaw has left him well short of the credits needed for a pension.

At home, Serge’s perennially scolding missus (Yolande Moreau) tells him to dust off the Munch Mammoth motorbike in the shed and track down his non-paying former employers. He doesn’t dare argue, but it’s a big ask just the same. Serge’s increasingly absurd quest brings him around abandoned premises, demented relatives and highly symbolic encounters: “No, no, I don’t want to go with you,” he shouts at a stampede of pensioners as they threaten to carry him onto a coach tour.

The ghost of ex-girlfriend Isabelle Adjani haunts the vintage vehicle, hinting at a traumatic history that has left Serge adrift. The mill in which he once toiled has been converted into a sleek media imprint. The elderly cousin he visits (Albert Delpy) would like favours neither gentleman is up to.

Film-makers Benoit Delépine and Gustave de Kervern's endearingly indie-schmindie road trip is far more Sundance than Tati. The set-up recalls Alexander Payne's About Schmidt, the increasingly absurd tone threatens to spill over into delirious Napoleon Dynamiteterritory, and the part of the quirky, kind-hearted artist niece (Miss Ming) could easily be essayed by Miranda July.

In common with Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestlerand James Mangold's Cop Land, Mammuthmarvels at the ageing, outsized body of its hero. The Belgian writer-directors linger over the many folds and evoke large mammals wherever possible. Within days of his retirement Serge paces and swaggers clumsily through the housed like a caged pachyderm; later, his outsider niece sculpts his likeness in cuddly toys giving him an elephant for a heart.

Depardieu, always a disarming performer, expands his pathos and charm to fit his gourmand frame; his elephantine humanity unifies a film that might otherwise be stragglier than Serge’s biker hair.