Skulduggery and identity theft on the Côte d’Azur; mounting tensions in a German high school; Irish folk-horror; and more…

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL My predecessor on this column, Jonathan Romney, has suggested that Laure Calamy –the retroussé-nosed Noémie from Netflix’s delightful Call My Agent! –is the French Olivia Colman, abeloved TV fixture now showing her range in more expansive roles. Last year she took the lead in Éric Gravel’s Full Time as an exhausted single mum on the verge of anervous breakdown. Now she relishes the opportunity to sink her teeth into the role of Nathalie, afishpacker and fantasist with big plans and few qualms.

The poster suggests that The Origin Of Evil is being marketed as aFrench twist on Knives Out: ascabrous yet picturesque portrait of awealthy patriarch in decline, surrounded by wives, daughters, granddaughters and servants, all bleeding him dry and surreptitiously plotting his demise. But it might be more fruitful to think of it as acontribution to the Ripley extended universe –the kind of identity-theft lesbian thriller Patricia Highsmith might have written in more tolerant times.

Nathalie arrives at the Côte d’Azur villa posing as long-lost daughter Stéphane, keen to reunite with the wealthy father she never knew. In fact, she’s stolen the identity of her violently obsessive girlfriend, currently banged up in prison after attacking an ex. She stealthily ingratiates herself with Serge (a magnificently monstrous Jacques Weber) and swiftly gets the lie of the land with the desperate wife, the embittered daughter and the embezzling maid, all vying for their inheritance.