Predictably disastrous: Kristin Scott Thomas and Sergi Lopez

Directed by Catherine Corsini. Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Sergi Lopez, Yvan Attal, Bernard Blancan, Aladin Reibel, Alexandre Vidal, Daisy Broom. 16 cert, limited release, 85 min.

A WHITE-KNUCKLE performance from Kristin Scott Thomas and a pleasing willingness to embrace hearty melodrama elevate Catherine Corsini’s taut French drama above industry-standard bourgeois flummery. Yes, it is the sort of film in which middle-class Gallic couples fall out over ownership of treasured abstract paintings. But it does begin with a mysterious gunshot – part of a framing sequence – and, along the way to its denouement, it takes in quite a few agreeably sharp turns.

Scott Thomas plays Suzanne, the wife of an arrogant – but far from monstrous – doctor (Yvan Attal), who, bored in middle age, decides to restart her career as a physiotherapist. While retooling her surgery, she rubs up against a Spanish handyman and gets drawn into a predictably disastrous affair. She makes a gallant attempt to resist temptation but eventually finds herself shacked up with the fellow in his humble apartment.

Her husband refuses to give them money and – or so she believes – uses his political influence to stop the lover securing employment. Some class of tragedy seems inevitable (and not just because of that gunshot).

By making Suzanne's husband a doctor, Corsini calls up irresistible reminders of Madame Bovary, but, with all that inter-class hanky panky, Leavingseems closer in spirit to Lady Chatterley's Lover. Whereas Suzanne comes across as a reasonably rounded character, her lover, played with commitment by Sergi Lopez, is defined entirely by his nationality and social standing. The film-makers seem to believe that only the bourgeoisie are entitled their nuances.

Such clod-hopping is unfortunate because, in other areas, the film proves a classy piece of work. Filmed with characteristic hand-held grace by Agnés Godard, scored to tunes from vintage François Truffaut films, Leavingbuilds the dread very effectively as it moves towards its ultimate catastrophe. You wouldn't call it subtle, but it packs an unusually weighty narrative punch.

If you want another reason to attend, be aware the picture contains shots of Kristin Scott Thomas working in a factory. Now there's something you don't see every day. DONALD CLARKE