“There’s someone in my life. My wife. She’s dead.”

So says Abel, the protagonist in THE INNOCENT, a film that joyfully pays homage to the great crime capers of the French New Wave and to Alfred Hitchcock, and is unabashedly, unashamedly fun.

Partly inspired by events from director and star, Louis Garrel’s own life, THE INNOCENT is a turn of the screw comedy involving widowed marine biologist Abel who learns that his impulsive mum, serial spouse Sylvie, flamboyantly played by Anouk Grinberg, is once again re-marrying, this time to an inmate she met whilst teaching theatre in prison, which makes him feel more than uncomfortable. More suspicious. Highly suspicious.

Doubting that convicted burglar Michel, portrayed with devastating suavity by Roschdy Zem, is capable of turning over a new leaf, Abel’s protective streak kicks in, and so with the help of his best friend Clemence, the sensational Noémie Merlant, he begins tailing his new stepfather’s movements.

Their amateur sleuthing is quickly uncovered by Michel and triggers an unlikely and bold business proposition for them both.

The annoying flamboyance with madcap mum at the beginning settles into a souffle of sorts, a delirious mix of comedy, romance, suspense and action, with several twists.

What also comes through is the power of drama in prison. The scenes within the jail are a precursor of the scene in civvy street where Abel is coached in the intricacies of the heist.

When these rehearsals are put into action at a roadside cafe, the power of performance seeps into a submerged reality, tapping into a buried truth that releases a tsunami of emotion.

THE INNOCENT is set around the Lyon area, a nice reprieve from the streets of Paris. And the scenes shot inside the aquarium are both beautifully rendered and enmeshed in the narrative.