Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 13/3/2014)

Widower François Damiens tries hard to engage with daughters Apollonia Luisetti and Fanie Zanini, who are never happier when they are doing dance routines in spangly costumes at school. He takes them for a picnic lunch at their mother' grave and they joke about grandpa smelling funny. But Damiens loses his temper with Luisetti when she misses a meal at school because she was too busy playing and Zanini cries because she doesn't like her daddy shouting. He calms them down and admits to neighbour Lola Dueñas that he doesn't have an easy life, but he avoids sharing too many confidences, as he knows she has a crush on him and he isn't ready to begin again.

Years pass in the twinkling of a cut to black and when Quillévéré catches up with the family, the teenage Sara Forestier and Adèle Haenel are singing happily in the cab of Damiens's lorry. However, the girls have become independent spirits and Damiens is so distraught at learning from a teacher at her school that Forestier is pregnant and has decided to keep the baby that he slaps her hard across the face when she gets home, as her recklessness will impact upon all of them. He gets used to the idea, however, and does his bit in caring for grandson Timothé Vom Dorp, while Forestier finds work as a telephonist with a soulless corporation.

Haenel realises her sister doesn't have much fun and takes her for a night out. But Forestier insists on bringing her child and he lies with his head on her lap, as she watches Haenel bopping with her pals. Even when she starts dating Karim Leklou, Haenel tries to involve Forestier and they go for a drive in his flashy yellow car and Forestier holds Vom Dorp up in the air to feel the sensation of speed and freedom. They go to the races and Leklou introduces them to his friend from Marseille and Paul Hamy asks Forestier if her son has a father, as he gives her a tip on a winning horse. A few days later, he meets her out of work and they kiss in an underpass.

Haenel gets a job in a sewing machine shop in Marseille and moves into her own flat. On a whim, Forestier takes unpaid leave to visit her and leaves Vom Dorp on his own, while she goes searching for Hamy. Haenel despairs of her sister for leaving the boy alone and is even more furious when she finds Hamy sleeping with Forestier and has to endure an awkward conversation over breakfast. She tells Forestier that she can't treat the place like a hotel, but she contemplates returning home soon afterwards, having discovered that Hamy is wanted by the police and has to lay low for a while. Thus, even though there had been an evident connection between them as they goofed around in the city, Forestier tells Hamy to sling his hook if he is not prepared to make her his priority.

Fearful that Forestier will lose her job, Damiens comes to fetch her and a huge row ensues, as he insists she has to settle down and get Vom Dorp enrolled in school. Forestier blames Haenel for not supporting her and she storms out to track down Hamy and go into hiding with him. A year later, there is still no sign of Forestier and Damiens shows her photo to a hitcher he picks up outside Orleans. He is now raising his grandson, but he has to take him to a psychologist after he starts getting into trouble when Damiens is away on long-haul trips. Haenel visits whenever she can and tries to help her nephew with his reading, but her own life seems to have stalled and she cuts a melancholy figure as she dances alone in a club.

Suddenly, the scene shifts to 2006 and Forestier is seen cowering on the lower bunk of a prison cell. She learns from lawyer Corinne Masiero that her son (now played by Jaime Da Cunha) has been placed with a foster family, as Damiens is away too often to care for him properly. Livid with her father for what she sees as treachery, Forestier barely acknowledges Damiensn or Haenel as they see her stand trial for assaulting a woman during a burglary and resisting arrest. Hamy got away and left her to face the music alone. But, she smiles when Haenel visits her and gives her a piece of jewellery he has sent her that is engraved with the words `I'll be there'. She wants nothing to do with Da Cunha, however, and refuses even to look at a photograph.

Eventually, Forestier is released and Haenel and Masiero are there to greet her. They drive to a motorway service station to meet with Damiens and his mate, who are en route to Calais. But the conversation is stilted and this it seems likely that he sees nothing of his daughter before she attempts suicide some months later and he weeps with Haenel at having let her down. Once she has recovered, Forestier is allowed a supervised visit with Da Cunha. But she barely recognises him and is stung when he uses the word `mum' in asking guardian Anne Le Ny if he can see the café where she is waitressing. As she waves him goodbye, Forestier knows she has lost him forever and, even though she feels cheated after the risk she took in having him, she thanks Haenel for doing such a good job in rearing him.

Despite trying to stay on the straight and narrow, Forestier cannot resist Hamy when he comes to the café and asks her to move into the house he has bought in Morocco. She slaps his face when they go back to his room and she is unnerved by the sight of the gun he now carries. But she is too much in love to refuse and she drives their car on to the ferry, while Hamy (who doesn't have a passport) slips past the customs officials and joins her on the deck. Some time later, Damiens gets a photograph of granddaughter Leyna Kerdjou Soriano and Forestier and Hamy come home for Christmas. Yet, while Forestier leaves a gift for Da Cunha on a bench in the garden, she has returned to drop a consignment of drugs hidden in her car door and inner tubes.

She goes to show Soriano her grandmother's grave and is heartbroken to see Haenel's name on the headstone. Forestier rushes round to see Damiens, but he has gone away and neighbour Manuela Gourary tells her that Haenel was killed two months ago while swerving to avoid a dog in her car. Feeling very much alone, Forestier drives to the docks with Hamy and their toddler. But a customs officer has doubts about her passport and, as she hugs Hamy, she wipes away a tear because she knows the game is up. Ironically, however, she is less alone than she has been for some time, as Damiens and Da Cunha visit her in jail and the former films the latter playing with his half-sister, as Forestier looks on proudly at the beautiful children who have made her misfiring life worthwhile.

Photographed with an edgy intimacy by Tony Harari that is complemented by Verity Susman's evocative electro-rock score and meticulously designed by Anna Falguères to convey the passage of a quarter of a century, this has been adeptly described as an elongated trailer for a non-existent mini-series. Such are the gaps in the plotline concocted by Quillévéré and Mariette Désert and pieced together by editor Thomas Marchand that the audience is constantly having to re-acquaint itself with characters who have moved on considerably since they were last encountered and this jump-cut approach to storytelling will frustrate as many as it fascinates.

Quillévéré is superbly served by her leads, with Forestier, Haenel and Damiens all inviting sympathy for misfits who try, with mixed results, to make the best of whatever fate throws at them. But, while she is to be lauded for eschewing pop psychological reasons for the family's dysfunction, the structural artifice undermines the social realism. Moreover, the tonal transitions from drama to thriller are unpersuasive. Consequently, the contention that even the grimmest existence has its sunnier moments feels trite rather than poetically authentic.

Australian writer-director Kim Mordaunt packs the incident into his feature debut, The Rocket, which was inspired by a group of Laotian boys he found gathering explosives for scrap during the filming of Bomb Harvest, a 2007 documentary profile of disposal specialist Laith Stevens. Making evocative use of rarely seen locations, Mordaunt and cinematographer Andrew Commis capture a society still feeling the effects of its violent past and struggling to come to terms with the cruel demands of the future. Yet, while it centres on a 10 year-old boy overcoming prejudice and almost insurmountable odds, there is nothing contrived or mawkish about this lively rite of passage. However, it is perhaps better suited to teenagers with a nascent interest in subtitled cinema than it is older arthouse regulars.

Such is the Laotian suspicion of twins - as it is believed that one will always be evil - Alice Keohavong has hidden the fact that Sitthiphon Disamoe had a stillborn sibling from husband Sumrit Warin for a decade. Mother-in-law Bunsri Yindi knows the truth, however, and when news breaks that the family will have to leave its village to make way for a second dam in the region, Yindi blames the misfortune on Disamoe and claims he carries a curse that will be the undoing of them all. Distressed at not knowing that a son had been buried without his knowledge, Warin takes Disamoe to see the existing dam further up the valley and they watch in melancholic silence as a video explains how the land of their ancestors will be flooded and they will have to move to a place called Paradise.

As he spends much of his time fishing, Disamoe insists on taking his boat with them. However, they struggle to get it to the top of a hill and it goes crashing down the other side and crushes Keohavong. Yindi snaps out the truth about his birth and Disamoe is so upset at killing his mother and being branded accursed that he runs back to the village, where Warin finds him sitting among the mangoes that had picked before they left. He promises the boy that they will plant them in their new garden and Disamoe cheers up. However, this happy day will have to wait a while, as work has yet to start on Paradise and the family is forced to choose between canvas and corrugated iron at the Nan Dee Relocation Camp.

While fetching water, Disamoe meets nine year-old Loungnam Kaosainam, who shows him around and introduces him to her uncle, Thep Phongam, who wears a purple suit because of his fixation with soul singer James Brown. He shows Disamoe an unexploded bomb in the forest and warns him to stay away from it. But the boy quickly learns that Phongam has a bad reputation, as he collaborated with the Americans during the Vietnam War, and he scowls when Warin informs him that he is not to play with Kaosainam any longer, even though he has given her one of his treasured mangoes. Outraged at being kept from his new friend, Disamoe runs to her shack and notices that she has a silent television. Reasoning that it is wrong for the camp leaders and the hydroelectric people to have power when the poor don't, Disamoe tries to connect a cable to the mains. But he succeeds only in blowing the system and he is chased around the camp until Warin is warned that they will be evicted if his son causes any more trouble.

Undaunted, Disamoe steals some flowers from a graveyard and presents them to Kaosainam. She tells him to put them back. But, in so doing, he knocks over a bamboo shrine, whose candles set fire to the surrounding memorials and the settlers are so furious that they torch Warin's tent in reprisal and the family is forced to make its escape aboard a cart loaded with unexploded bombs. Now refugees from a displacement camp, they rely on Yindi hitching a ride on a motorbike and sidecar, which they have to share with a piglet. Moreover, they have to part with some of their precious cash to bribe brigands who try to stop them passing in the night.

Eventually, they find an abandoned village and Disamoe is so frustrated that he starts whacking fruit with a stick and is only prevented from thrashing a bomb by the ever-watchful Phongam. The device explodes as soon as he tosses it away and Warin agrees that they cannot remain in such a place of danger and death. As they trudge on, they have to wheel the drunken Phongam in a shopping trolley because Kaosainam had promised her father she would always take care of him. But, when they finally reach another camp, the elders inform them that they can only stay for two days because resources are so scarce. Warin wonders what is to become of them, but Disamoe is more interested in the fact that the residents are about to hold a rocket launching competition in the hope of causing a downpour, with the designer of the missile that travels the furthest receiving a substantial prize.

When they are sent to the nearby town to buy rice, Disamoe and Kaosainam see lots of people working on their rockets, including some monks. Kaosainam dances to distract one group so that Disamoe can steal a fuse and he tells her that he would buy a plot of land if he could win the contest. For once, Yindi likes the idea, as she doesn't fancy having to work in a factory and live in the city. So, Disamoe wanders off into the forest for inspiration and thinks he sees his mother. He follows her into a funeral procession and, when Kaosainam comes to find him, he barks at her like a dog until she leaves him alone. He wanders deeper into the jungle and finds a UXB. He calls it a `sleeping tiger' and strikes it with a rock in a bid to prise it open. No sooner has he walked away, however, than it detonates and sends a colony of bats flying into the sky.

Relieved at having survived another near thing, Disamoe begs Phongam to help him build a rocket and they head for the bat cave to scoop up some guano to use for fuel. As he is afraid of ghosts, Phongam refuses to go inside and Disamoe is surprised to meet an old lady and her daughter. She asks if Disamoe is a ghost and the crone accuses him of being a bad twin because he doesn't bleed. Frightened, the boy gathers as much droppings as he can and skedaddles. But he refuses to give up and still have high hopes when the day of the big event dawns.

Entrants whose rockets fail to take off get pitched into a pool of muddy water and one man is dropped in when he lets go of his too soon and it nearly crashes into a nearby house. Everyone expects the enormous `Million' rocket to win. But Disamoe has been experimenting and puts Phongam's expertise into a missile he dubs, `The Bat'. However, the judges refuse to let a small boy on to the launch frame and he pleads with Warin to take his place. Fearing the worst, Yindi tries to stop her son from stepping into the breach. But he ignores her and, even when Disamoe suddenly has reservations, he lights the fuse and the rocket shoots into the sky and travels an impressive distance before exploding like a firework.

The crowd cheers rapturously when it starts to rain and Disamoe is hailed a hero amidst the rejoicing. Kaosainam congratulates her friend and suggests that this is a blessing from his mother when the elders invite the family to become part of the community, as they have brought it such good luck. Phongam has decided to move on, however, and as he leaves on the bomb truck, Kaosainam gives Disamoe her mango and tells him to plant it and prosper, as she bids him farewell and promises never to forget him.

There have been several recent films about scrappy kids proving the grown-ups wrong in following their instincts to win the day. But few have demonstrated such brio in joining the pantheon of screen scamps as Sitthiphon Disamoe, whose talent for calamity costs him his mother and his temporary home before he finally comes good. He is winsomely supported by Loungnam Kaosainam and the rascally Thep Phongam, but neither role is as fully fleshed out and it does feel at times as though the supporting players exist simply to push the plot along and help Disamoe realise his destiny.

Nevertheless, Mordaunt avoids patronising exoticism and touches thoughtfully on the effects that warfare has had on South-East Asia and the price that ordinary people have to pay for the so-called progress imposed upon them by multinational corporations. But the pacifist and ecological messages are never forced, even when Mordaunt explores the extent to which a modernising society is still prone to superstition. The humour is never particularly subtle, especially where Phongam's Uncle Purple is concerned. But younger viewers will enjoy the slapstick and should warm to the theme of a rebel finding both a cause and acceptance, while also learningn to appreciate that not every kid has it as easy as they do.

By contrast, Jon Sanders's Back to the Garden is aimed at those at the opposite end of the age range. Far too few films are made about folks in their late middle age and this follows Low Tide (2008) and Late September (2012) in exploring concerns about love, loss and legacy in an unhurried, improvisatory manner in a pleasingly appointed setting. Reinforced by the title, the Edenic feel is particularly strong in this slowly simmering saga, which benefits enormously from the unobtrusive cinematography of David Scott and the delightful flute-inflected score by Douglas Finch. But, as in his earlier outings, Sanders too often seems content to let his actors extemporise at their leisure, with the result that they sometimes seem to be straying from the point and straining for significance.

A year has passed since Emma Garden's theatre director husband, Stephen Lowe, passed away. She has found it difficult to get used to being alone, as her life was so entwined with his. Moreover, she has struggled to reclaim her identity and she confides to neighbour Petra Markham that she is rather dreading a reunion of old friends to pay their last respects before she buries her spouse's ashes in the flower bed.

Her trepidation is shared by longtime marrieds Anna Mottram and Bob Goody, who are not looking forward to having to do a small turn in tribute to their mentor in a small outdoor show before the committal. They stop for coffee and a sandwich in the quiet of the Kent countryside and Mottram can sense that her husband is unhappy, but she had learned not to press him for information, as she doesn't always want to hear what he has to say.

Nearby, Charlotte Palmer boards a small boat moored at the end of a jetty for a rendezvous with her lover, Richard Garaghty. They lament post-coitally that this will be the last time they will be able to use the craft, as Garden has decided to sell it and they wonder where they will be able to canoodle in the future, as they are still something of a clandestine couple, even though neither has other attachments and they clearly enjoy each other physically and intellectually. As they chat, they hear footsteps on the deck and fall nervously silent. However, the interloper disappears as quickly as they arrived and they laugh about nearly being caught in flagrante.

Having arrived at Garden's idyllic home among the fields, Mottram gives Goody a quick haircut and teases him about the fact that he always manages to find himself a special female friend during every production with which he's involved. He tries to plead innocence and insists he is simply protecting vulnerable waifs from the wolves in the cast, but Mottram knows that his flings mean nothing and that he will always come back to her. As Goody goes to collect the final guest Tanya Myers from her train, Mottram asks Garden how she is faring and reassures her that it takes time to become accustomed to grief.

Stopping off at the pub on the way back from the station, Goody tells Myers that he has landed her a part as his assistant on a new TV series. She is flattered that he considered her for the role, but insists that it is better if she turns it down, as she knows he has fallen in love with her and she does not reciprocate his feelings. He tries to persuade her that they will have fun together and that the shoot might bring them closer, but Myers is adamant that she doesn't want to hurt him or Mottram, as they have been such good friends for so long and Goody reluctantly accepts her decision.

Once everyone is assembled, Garden, Mottram, Markham and Myers sit together at a wooden table in the garden and discuss how hard it must be to lose the person you love. They consider whether having faith makes bereavement easier, as there is the possibility of a celestial reunion. But the majority are certain that death is the corporeal end, even though the spirit of the deceased lives on in both family members and friends and in the work they leave behind. While this conversation continues, Goody confides in Myers that he has allowed his feelings to get the better of him and she urges him not to jeopardise his marriage to such a lovely woman as Mottram for the sake of a crush.

While Garden and Myers rehearse a song at the piano and Goody helps Markham dig a hole for the interment, Mottram tries to put Garaghty at his ease about being the outsider of the party. She explains that she used to act, but concentrated on supporting Goody and raising their children when the parts dried up. But she admits that it isn't always easy on the periphery and she hopes that Garaghty finds happiness with Palmer if this is what they both want. Indeed, this conversation seems to clarify Mottram's thinking and she goes to see Myers, who is reading on her bed. She tells her that she has always known that Goody has strayed while treading the boards, but warns her that he is not the most reliable of men and Myers snappishly reassures her that she has done nothing to encourage his affections and the pair hug before Mottram wanders down to the garden to tell Goody that, if staying with her makes him so unhappy, she won't stand in his way.

As dusk deepens, the friends perch on a bench in the garden for their show. Garaghty and Palmer open proceedings with a plate-spinning act before Myers sings by Turner Layton and Henry Creamer's jazz standard `After You're Gone'. Palmer then plays the flute and Garaghty the tambourine, as Mottram and Garden perform an ancient Greek dance and Goody closes with a self-composed poem about the time that Lowe had told him how to improve his technique by being in the moment. He jokes about what a hard taskmaster Lowe could be and pauses before telling everyone how grateful he is to Mottram for sticking with him for so long. Lowe's ghost hovers between the bench and the bushes, as the friends embrace before going in to change for the ceremony. Garden keeps things simple, as she pours the ashes into the hole, which Goody fills in before sidling up to Mottram, putting his arm around her and leading her inside.

The action opens with a couple of enigmatic scenes that may well be dreams. The first sees Garden make a cup of tea on the boat and welcome an off-screen presence who may simply be a figment of her tormented imagination, while the second sees Goody stride through the morning mist to the riverbank to watch a rowing boat drift past containing a figure that is more likely to be Mottram than Myers. But this is all Sanders gives us by way of backstory and it takes a while for viewers to get up to speed with who everybody is and how they connect with each other. Even then, some of the ties remain frustratingly loose and this refusal to let the audience fully into the story world leaves them lingering on margins with an uncomfortable sense they are eavesdropping on conversations that would be better off taking place in private.

Shooting on a shoestring in a limited time span, Sanders makes heavy demands on his cast and, sadly, several of the exchanges are plain dull, while others are utterly excruciating. Indeed, many are overtaken by what can only be described as waffle, as the static camera fixes unflinchingly on performers who largely learnt their craft in alternative theatre in the 1970s. Yet, Sanders does indulge in one of his trademark sideways pans during the garden table conflab and (as one might expect from such a seasoned sound recordist) he also makes fine audiovisual use of the road and railway line in the middle distance. Moreover, he captures the mood of wistfulness and regret permeating the encounters, which he flecks with a wit and tenderness that makes the characters and their situations all the more believable. Thus, while this occasionally feels like a casual record of an acting workshop, it has the courage of its conviction and by sticking to its own rhythms and cadences, it succeeds in being honest, thoughtful and touching.

The tone couldn't be more different in Darren Stein's G.B.F., a gay teen comedy that takes the fortysomething Californian back to the high school setting of his last feature, Jawbreaker (1999). Yet, while this zips along pleasingly enough, in a John Hughes meets Q. Allan Brocka kind of way, Stein and screenwriter George Northy keep trying to squeeze plotlines that would have seemed outdated in the 90s into a modern-day fairytale whose denouement feels like a kitschy mash-up between Clueless and Carrie.

North Gateway High is dominated by three cliques, with prim Mormon princess Andrea Bowen disapproving of the diva antics of African-American drama queen Xosha Roquemore and the mean girl swagger of Sasha Pieterse and her sassy blondes. But only one can be crowned at the forthcoming prom and the trio start scouring social media sites for the hip gambit that can give them the edge. Ironically, just as they discover that the coolest accessory is a gay best friend, eccentric teacher Natasha Lyonne tells Joanna `JoJo' Levesque that she will be fired as chair of the straight-gay liaison committee unless she can actually find a gay or lesbian student at the notoriously buttoned-up institution. 

As the search for someone to out begins, Michael J. Willett and his buddy Paul Iacono joke with acolytes Derek Mio and Molly Tarlov that they are glad they decided to remain in the closet until college, as life would have been unbearable if they had been forced to cope with the chastising Christians, bullying jocks and sneering It girls. However, Iacono is keen to try out the new Guydar app and persuades Willett to upload it to his phone, just as it is confiscated by teacher Richard Strauss and Levesque and factotum Mia Rose Frampton use the app to track down a bona fide gay guy.

Willett is mortified that his cover has been blown and, after a day of being feted by Pieterse, Bowen and Roquemore, he storms round to Iacono's house and takes out his frustration by outing him to single mother Megan Mullally, who has been doing everything in her power to encourage her son to embrace his homosexuality so that she can show him how supportive she can be. Ashamed at his behaviour, Willett contemplates coming out to father Jonathan Silverman and stepmother Rebecca Gayheart, but he doesn't have the nerve and slinks away to his room to receive admonitory messages from Mio and Tarlov for betraying Iacono's trust.

Much to the disgust of respective boyfriends Tyler Frey and Brock Harris, Bowen and Pieterse join forces with Roquemore to make Willett fabulous and he is whisked through a makeover montage before returning to school like a catwalk model. Bowen's sidekick, Evanna Lynch, is aghast that she should cast aside her religious beliefs in order to cling to the in-crowd and sets up her own cabal to demand Principal Horatio Sanz bans gays from the prom so it can remain pure. Caught in the middle of the furore, Willett finds himself being subjected to Frey's unsubtle advances and he simply wishes he could get back to normal with Iacono, Mio and Tarlov, who watch his transformation into a style icon with a mix of consternation and fascination.

In order to win him over, Pieterse helps Willett with his chemistry homework and arranges for him to meet cute British student Anthony Garland at a weekend party. However, Roquemore convinces him that they will be striking a blow for diversity if they become prom king and queen, while the amusingly naive Bowen also tries to seduce him into her corner by feeding him sausages. Indeed, such is her callowness that she dry humps Mio at the party to get an idea of what gays like in bed. But they are interrupted and Willett (who is unused to booze) disgraces himself by throwing up on Frey's shoes. As he staggers home, Willett bumps into Iacono, who has fled the gay movie night that Mullally has thrown in his honour. They kiss and make-up, but Iacono is upset when Willett throws him out next morning before Gayheart can find them sharing a bed.

However, he is even more put out when he learns that Willett is planning to go to the prom with Garland. So, when Lynch refuses to let him buy tickets, Pieterse gatecrashes one of Levesque's alliance meetings and offers to host an alternative prom so that everyone can have their big night. The gushing Lyonne is all in favour of the idea and helps sweet-talk Principal Sanz. But he is less than impressed when Roquemore and Iacono join forces with Lynch to support the official prom and covers the walls with politically incorrect posters when the rivals set up ticket tables on opposite sides of the hall. Willett fears things are getting out of control and tries to back out, but Pieterse convinces him that he has to stand his ground for the sakes of the gay kids who will come after him and the hug in solidarity.

The upshot of the bickering is that Willett is now allowed to go to the official prom. But Iacono plots with Roquemore to tip a bucketful of glitter over Willett when he makes his acceptance speech. The die-hard Lynch also plans to make her presence felt by organising a Christian picket line. But everyone just walks through it, including Tarlov, who has been persuaded to cover the event for the school paper by Mio, who fancies his chances of getting off with Bowen now that she has dumped Frey. He winds up snogging in a parked car with Garland, who realises that Willett isn't ready to explore his physical sexuality yet. Moreover, he isn't willing to risk his friendship with Iacono by dating him and, after Iacono pushes Willett out of the way of the cascading glitter douche, they agree to remain platonic pals.

As the closing sequences tie up the loose ends, with Mio and Bowen becoming an item and Pieterse becoming Miss Popular, everyone flicks through the pages of their yearbook and Stein slips some droll out-takes into the closing crawl. It's impossible not to feel a certain satisfaction that the pieces have slotted into place and that everyone (with the notable exception of the bigoted Lynch) has made it through their rite of passage unscathed. Despite his best efforts to be the genial anti-hero, Willett is upstaged at every turn by the knowingly preening Iacono and the competing prima donnas. Bowen (who be familiar to many from Desperate Housewives) is particularly witty, as she commits endless faux pas in trying to learn gayspeak, although she meets her match in this department in the excellent Mullally, whose encouraging commentary to Brokeback Mountain is hilarious.

Unfortunately, Northy isn't able to sustain such standards and the occasionally cartoonish script resorts to cliché and caricature too often for comfort. Nevertheless, the energy of the ensemble just about atones, as does the gleeful garishness of Kit Scarbo's costumes. Despite his fine sense of place and pace, Stein falls some way short of John Hughes or Amy Heckerling. But the insights into the mechanics of classroom conformity and the quiet acuity of clued-in parents are shrewd enough and it's to be hoped we don't have to wait another 14 years for his next picture.

Finally, this week, Carlos Aguilo and Mandy Jacobson relate a remarkable tale in Plot for Peace, which uncovers the role played by commodity trader Jean-Yves Ollivier in ending conflict in Southern Africa in the late 1980s and paving the way for the release of Nelson Mandela. Few knew anything about the involvement of this portly, bespectacled Frenchman and those that did had no idea of the scale of his operations. Some even suspected he was a spy. But, in coaxing the reluctant hero into the spotlight, the co-directors seem not to trust the epochal significance of his story and present it in the manner of a pugnacious thriller that not only trivialises the gravity of a perilous situation, but also leaves frustrating gaps in both the infinitely complex process of securing peace and ending apartheid and in the personal life of the mercurial `Monsieur Jacques'.

First seen puffing on a large cigar and playing Solitaire in a hotel room. Jean-Yves Ollivier explains that making a mark on history often involves playing the hand dealt by fate with care and patience. As he speaks, Aguilo and Jacobson intercut images of protest and police brutality in the black townships of South Africa in the 1980s before assembling an array of key players in the crisis to confirm that things might have turned out very differently without Ollivier's intervention. Among them are ANC activists Winnie Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Mathews Phosa, South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha, Head of Military Intelligence Neels Van Tonder, President of Mozambique Joaquim Chissano and his Minister of Security and Cooperation Jacinto Veloso, US Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker, National Security Council member Michael Ledeen, French African adviser Jean-Christophe Mitterand and President of Congo-Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso.

Born and raised in Algeria, Ollivier had experienced the French withdrawal from its former colony as a 17 year-old youth in May 1962. He had hated the way his parents were forced to leave with nothing and had struggled to acclimatise to life in Paris. But he was most scarred by the five months he spent in prison for smuggling secret messages and the beatings he received at the hands of his gaolers taught him that a just cause would inevitably be seen as unjust by those deleteriously affected by it.

Thus, when he visited South Africa in 1981 while trading in cereal, coal and oil, Ollivier recognised another society on the edge of a volcano. Indeed, he was shocked by how little white South Africans seemed to appreciate the seriousness of their predicament. So, deciding to ignore what he considered the futile sanctions then restricting trade with Pretoria, Ollivier began building up contacts within the hierarchy in order to win the trust he would need to exploit in order to put his master plan into practice. However, he suspected that time was not on his side, as the African National Congress had started an aggressive campaign of resistance that prompted Winnie Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to urge restraint and President PW Botha to issue dire warnings about the lengths to which he was prepared to go to retain white minority rule.

Amidst the clips of street skirmishes and stadium speeches, Director-General of Foreign Affairs, Leo `Rusty' Evans recalls how South Africa was isolated on the world stage and facing the real possibility of meltdown at home. But Ollivier was convinced that the key to ending apartheid lay with diffusing the tensions involving the Frontline states of Namibia, Angola and Mozambique, as the outlawed ANC had cells in each country that were constantly under attack by assassination squads. As sickening footage of the aftermath of a bloodbath appears on screen, Joaquim Chissano explains why he signed the Nkomati Accord in 1984 to try and normalise relations with Pretoria. Crocker scoffs that this was a cosmetic exercise, as the violence continued unabated and Ollivier concedes that it did nothing to assuage South Africa's fears about a Communist conspiracy to seize power.

Van Tonder has no doubt that Moscow wanted to bring down the government, but Mitterand and Crocker suggest that the Red Menace was merely a pretext for South Africa to keep attacking the ANC on its doorstep. In truth, Aguilo and Jacobson skate over the skein of intrigue at play here and fail to explain adequately why Cuba and Russia backed the regime of José Eduardo Dos Santos (which had held power since 1979), while Washington and Pretoria supported the UNITA rebels led by Jonas Savimbi. They include an amusing anecdote by Crocker about President Ronald Reagan letting slip details of American involvement during a White House garden party, but only those with an already reasonable grasp of the region and its rivalries will readily appreciate why Ollivier felt that this civil war was crucial to the future of Southern Africa.

At the outset, Ollivier thought that France could play the honest broker to get the warring parties around the conference table. Consequently, he approached new prime minister Jacques Chirac and arranged for chief of staff Michel Roussin to travel into the Angolan interior and meet with Savimbi and gauge his response to peace entreaties. Odile Bidiyi, the President of the non-governmental organisation Survie, still considers this action to have been a monstrous betrayal of democracy, as she feels that Chirac had no right to engage with a maverick `free electron' without an official role in what was, essentially, a gamble. However, Chirac did his bit by inviting Dos Santos, Chissano and Botha to make state visits to France. However, it transpired that Botha's turn coincided with high level talks with the Organisation of African Unity and chairman Sassou-Nguesso insisted that he would walk out of the summit if Chirac met a man with blood on his hands.

Botha was infuriated by the snub, but Ollivier was even more dismayed, as it meant France could not longer act as the intermediary.  He reasoned, however, that the cause of the breakdown could take up the mantle and he convinced Sassou-Nguesso to invite a secret delegation of South African diplomats to Brazzaville to start exploratory talks. Ollivier recalls how the visitors had bridled at the prospect of dining on iguana and turtle and had been duped into eating locusts in the belief they were freshwater shrimp. But the occasion convinced Pretoria that Sassou-Nguesso was trustworthy and that Ollivier was a man with whom they could do business.

Moreover, the meeting persuaded Sassou-Nguesso that he was not dealing with Nazis and Ollivier swept Ledeed into Congo on National Day to prove that the State Department could get behind his policy of `constructive engagement' with Africa's Marxist regimes and retain its access to the area's mineral resources without being seen as going soft at the height of the Cold War. South Africa shared the US desire for Cuban troops to leave Angola and Pik Botha recognised that an exchange of prisoners was key to opening a meaningful dialogue. He was keen to bring home Wynand Du Toit, who had been captured while leading a special services raid on the Gulf oil refinery at Cabinda in May 1985.

Devised by Van Tonder, the plan had been to undermine the Angolan economy. However, while the plant was being guarded by Cubans, the parent company was American and Botha (who claimed to know nothing about the sabotage mission) had been hugely embarrassed by its very public failure. Thus, while PW Botha blustered about refusing to release Mandela while Du Toit was denied his liberty, Pik Botha encouraged Ollivier to visit Dos Santos in Luanda and see if he could open any channels. With Chissano acting as conduit, Ollivier admitted to Dos Santos that he had been in touch with Savimbi and his honesty earned him an opportunity to meet with Du Toit in his cell. Convinced he was a double agent who had been sent to trick him into betraying secrets, Du Toit greeted Ollivier warily. But he warmed to him when he gave him an expensive pen as a goodwill gesture.

The co-directors enthuse that this was typical of Olliver's selfless humanitarianism, as he paid for much of his shuttle diplomacy out of his own pocket (although Pretoria did contribute towards his expenses). They also reveal that he started hiring his own planes to cut down on the time and expense involved in taking commercial flights. But, on one occasion, he was forced to flee Angola without official clearance and had to fly in darkness and radio silence until he was out of territorial air space after Dos Santos had taken exception to an undisclosed incident.

While Ollivier struggled to convince Dos Santos, Pretoria leant on Savimbi to release a substantial number of prisoners of war. It nearly blundered, however, in offering Ollivier an attaché case full of diamonds to help bribe the Angolan government into speeding up the process. But a date for an exchange at Maputo airport in Mozambique was agreed and Ollivier organised a neutral zone on the tarmac so that POWs could pass without interference. He also oversaw the drafting of a communiqué that would enable all sides to save face and calmed South African fears when the plane carrying Du Toit unexpectedly changed course and dropped off their radar screens. Pik Botha was less than happy with the wording of the document (which blamed South Africa for the Cabinda raid) and only agreed to sign it if he was allowed to greet Du Toit in front of the television cameras. Considering this a small sop to a courageous politician's vanity, Ollivier consented and, having slipped a few Namibian POWs into the Angolan ranks to make up the numbers (because some had married UNITA brides and refused to go home), he found himself stranded at the airport after all 135 POWs and their welcoming committees had departed. 

Although PW Botha could not forget his Parisian rebuff and gave Ollivier grudging thanks, Pik Botha awarded him the Order of the Cape of Good Hope. But his work was far from done. In 1987, Fidel Castro doubled the number of Cuban troops in Angola and announced that he would only remove them when apartheid fell. Castro's African affairs specialist Jorge Risquet boasts that the cream of the armed forces were dispatched and Angolan Foreign Minister Afonso `M'binda' Van Dúnem recalls that government forces outnumbered the enemy for the first time during the pivotal Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. Risquet calls this the jab that was intended to open up the guard for the knockout punch and Phosa agrees that this was a humiliating defeat for Pretoria (although Pik Botha counters that it could hardly be called a calamity when thousands of Cubans and Angolans perished, while only thirty-odd South Africans lost their lives).

Ollivier, however, was not concerned with casualty figures or who could claim victory, as he recognised this as the crucial moment to start negotiations and he persuaded Jean-Christophe Mitterand to slip away from a visit to Mozambique to fly in secret to a hunting lodge in the South African veldt to oversee talks between Pik Botha, Veloso and Van-Dúnem that were designed to let the principals get to know one another before getting down to serious business. But, on an official level, relations were still frozen and Crocker recalls a summit in London, at which the Cubans warned South Africa that they had the firepower to batter them into submission and the latter responded by reminding the former about how it had resisted bigger and better forces during the Boer War.

Behind the rhetoric, Ollivier brought Havana and Pretoria together in Cairo in May 1988 to discuss a way forward in Angola. Risquet and Botha recall the tense opening exchanges, during which South Africa sought to establish whether Cubans were marrying Angolan women to create an army of the future, while Cuba pressed for information about the number of ANC members in custody. Eventually, however, Botha realised that it was possible for both sides to claim victory by letting the world know that Castro had caused South Africa to pull out of Namibia and that PW Botha had forced Cuba to quit Angola. Everyone recognised this as a diplomatic masterstroke and Sassou-Nguesso was requested to host the signing of the Brazzaville Protocol on 13 December 1988.

Within weeks, Cuban and South African troops were on the move and Phosa proclaims that this initiative started a domino effect that resulted in PW Botha being replaced by FW De Klerk and talks commencing with the ANC. As the Berlin Wall came down, a new world order seemed possible and Winnie Mandela credits Ollivier for doing more than most to bring it about. Wynand Du Toit likes to think his release proved significant, too, as, just 14 months after Brazzaville, Nelson Mandela left Robben Island on 13 February 1990. But Chester Crocker is more cautious in stating that South Africa was fortunate in having such a soft landing after the Rainbow Nation was formed.

As Mandela addressed the crowd in the Soweto soccer stadium, he had no idea who Jean-Yves Ollivier was and he was reluctant to step into the limelight, as all he had done was align the cards to bring about order. He accepted the Order of Good Hope from Mandela (and, in the process, became the only person to receive it from both regimes). But, while he opines that his method of diplomacy could be used to resolve crises in some of the world's other trouble spots, Aguilo and Jacobson avoid explaining why Ollivier has come forward now to accept the plaudits to which he is so evidently entitled. Indeed, might this story still have been told without revealing his identity?

Motivation aside, this is a compelling piece of historical revision. However, it might have been a more valuable document had it eschewed much of the filmic gimmickry designed to make it appeal to general audiences. This is a sombre subject and Aguilo's flashy editing to the accompaniment of Antony Partos's melodramatic score frequently risks turning it into the stuff of an espionage thriller. Admittedly, there is a good deal of cloak-and-dagger activity here, but one is left with the impression that only a fraction of the true story is being told in what is a surprisingly compact actuality, given the magnitude of the events it describes.