Robust: Utterly charming, ultimately sad debut from Constance Meyer

One occasionally detects a whiff of “oh, what happened to Gérard Depardieu?” from the prevailing winds. The answer is that, though we don’t get that much of him here, he has been doing quite nicely for himself. He has a role in the recent César-winning Lost Illusions. We will soon see him as Maigret for Patrice Leconte.

Now, he turns up in an utterly charming, ultimately sad, debut feature from Constance Meyer. The filmmakers have made the extraordinarily brave decision to cast him as an overweight, difficult film star with a habit of blundering in where he is not wanted. Georges is one of those older men who feels any woman — waitresses, bar staff, passing strangers — will be charmed by his delaying interest. It’s only a bit of fun. What’s the problem? You know the sort.

The story kicks off with Aïssa (Déborah Lukumuena from Houda Benyamina’s Divines), a patient young black woman who wrestles to a high level in her spare time, being appointed as his driver, bodyguard and general factotum. There is some mild tension between them at first. She runs his lines. She endures tours of his deep-sea fish. “I like being a f**ker,” he says, pretending to more self-awareness than he actually possesses.

One picks up hints of Call My Agent here. There are also worrying suggestions of the interracial blockbuster The Intouchables. But the film is less jocular than the former and (thank heavens) less patronising than the latter. Robust is to be recommended for the delicate, never quite combustible chemistry between Lukumuena and Depardieu.

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She is willing to allow him some accommodation, but will not humiliate herself to pacify his appalling egotism. He feels awfully smug about revealing home truths that, Aïssa explains, she was capable of discerning without his help. Neither looks to the other for any sort of enlightenment.

[ Gérard Depardieu, ‘not fully cancelled’, is ‘France incarnate’ ]

The film’s refusal to wheel out the familiar tropes of the mismatched-couple flick and its stubborn rejection of sentimentality may ultimately leave some viewers disappointed. But it does come to a satisfactory conclusion that invites Depardieu to deliver a flamboyantly self-pitying monologue. Twice. It hardly needs to be said that he grasps the opportunity with indecent relish.

A slight film, but flawless in its way.