★★★★★ OUT 29 MARCH CINEMAS
It’s less ‘Who’s your Daddy?’ than ‘Who’s your daughter?’ in this sharp-toothed and twisty French thriller about a long-lost offspring seeking paternal love (and maybe loot) within a dysfunctional hotel dynasty.
Laure Calamy (Call My Agent!) is deliciously demure as broke, lonely ex-con Stéphane, keen to cosy up to ailing biological father Serge (Jacques Weber), the creepiest tycoon on the Côte d’Azur. Director Sébastien Marnier gets us rooting for Stéphane as Serge’s ruthless younger daughter (Doria Tillier) and his shopaholic wife Louise (Dominique Blanc, oozing Almodóvar-ish camp) try and oust her from their crazy, crammed mansion. Despite its hate-the-rich comic touches – see also Saltburn and Parasite – the film is an edgy little number, full of tension and jeopardy as Stéphane wriggles between her hateful new family and a volatile, violent jailbird girlfriend (Suzanne Clément).