Kings & Queen

After two investigations of performance – ‘In the Company of Men’ (2003) and ‘Esther Kahn’ (2000), the latter a cerebral, daft, and hugely moving masterpiece of consensual illusion – Desplechin returns to the talk-crammed Parisian interiors of ‘My Sex Life… or How I Started an Argument’ (1996) for his similarly discursive, affectionate latest. Nora (the ever-endearing Devos), anguished by her father's struggle with terminal cancer, wants to locate her former lover so he can adopt her fatherless son; the ex in question, Ishmaël (Amalric, who played Devos' longtime boyfriend in 'My Sex Life') wants out of the sanitorium where he's been involuntarily committed. Desplechin casts a keen, amused, yet benevolent eye on his characters' foibles; though the film grapples mightily with grief, mortality, and the nature of the parent-child bond, ‘Kings and Queen’ is happily riddled with comic detours, dubious philosophical exposition (Amalric's character impatiently explains to Dr. Deneuve that women don't have souls, etc), and unhinged non sequiturs – just wait till you see Amalric breakdance.