Parky at the Pictures (DVD 21/9/2017)

This exquisite circle of life study caught the eye of the powers at Studio Ghibli, who invited the Dutch-born, London-based animator to be their first overseas director. He entered into the spirit of this arrangement by using tea to draw the abstract designs in The Aroma of Tea (2006), But his debut feature, which he has scripted with Pascale Ferran (whose 2014 feature, Bird People, was mystifyingly denied a UK release), feels like an undiscovered fable by Hans Christian Andersen or something that Charles Darwin might have written on the homeward voyage of HMS Beagle and left in a desk drawer. Consequently, it has none of the breakneck bustle associated with modern Hollywood animation, while its hand-drawn graphics will delight traditionalists seeking refuge from all those pixels. Swept by huge Hokusai waves, a nameless man is washed on to the shore of a desert island. No one else appears to survive the presumed wreck and he is woken by a crab crawling up his white trouser leg. Struggling to his feet, he wanders inland and swims in a freshwater pool in a clearing in a bamboo forest. He finds food in a fruit tree and feels refreshed enough to explore. As he clambers on to a granite headland, however, he loses his footing and falls into a deep pool inside a ravine. Holding his breath, he squeezes through a narrow gap in the underwater rocks and emerges in the sea.

After acclimatising himself to his new surroundings, the castaway begins gathering bamboo for a raft. Exhausted by his labours, he lies on the sand and watches some baby turtles scurry to the tideline to let the water carry them away to swim. Dozing on the moonlit beach, he dreams of a long wooden jetty and whoops as he runs along it before flying low over the planking. But he wakes to find himself flat on his back looking up at a clear blue sky. Along the bay, a crab finds a dead turtle and drags it back to its hole in the sand.

Drawing on all his ingenuity, the man builds his craft and uses creepers to lash the wood together. He uses some spare logs to roll the raft to the water's edge and allows the wind to catch the foliage he is using as a sail. Satisfied with his work, he shares some fruit with the ever-curious crabs, who form a farewell committee as the stranger embarks on his escape. However, he is still in sight of the island when an unseen creature buffets the timbers and he is forced to abandon the shattered shell and swim for shore.

Undeterred, the man begins to construct a second craft. But this meets with the same fate and he feels so crushed by his failure that he collapses in the woods and sleeps heavily. A crab gets a fish stuck in its sand hole, while a spider closes in on an insect trapped in its web. Birds circle overhead and a millipede crawls over the comatose man's foot. He hallucinates that an 18th-century string quartet is playing on the beach and he howls in anguish when he realises they are an illusion. With his beard growing longer and his pants in tatters, the man skins a dead seal to make some new clothes so that he can make a start on a new raft. The inquisitive crabs hasten aboard, but the man ushers them off before setting forth once more. A short way out, he spots a large red turtle swimming beside him and he grabs hold of a pole to try and defend himself. But the creature rams the fragile structure again and looks deep into the man's eyes, as he curls in a foetal ball under the surface. The turtle seems protective towards the man, but he is furious and hurls a rock into the sea on regaining land. He stalks into the forest and, as dusk falls, he sees the turtle come ashore from his high vantage point. Hurtling through the undergrowth, he rushes at his assailant as the sky turns red and clubs it over the head. Beside himself with rage, the man tips the dazed animal on its shell and leaves its head and flippers dangling as he jumps on its belly with a terrifying sense of triumph.

Helpless, the turtle lies in the hot sun while its conqueror carries logs for yet another escape bid. But, as he works, the fellow starts to feel remorse. The following morning, he tries to catch a fish to tempt the creature. But it has already perished and the crabs shuffle in to devour the fish on its wooden spear. Racked with guilt, the man drifts into sleep and dreams that the turtle floats towards the heavens. On waking, he splashes its face with sea water and is alarmed when the carcass suddenly cracks. Then, to his amazement, a red-haired woman emerges from the scales and the man hurries to bring some drinking water.

He also builds a shelter to keep off the sun, while the crabs play with the smaller twigs. Unsure what to do for the best, he sits by the canopy until he decides it needs more leaves. While he is in the woods, however, the woman is revived by a downpour and she has disappeared by the time the man returns. He searches the island, but there is no sign of her, apart from some footprints by the pool, and he frets that she is punishing him for his intemperate cruelty.

The next morning, the man is relieved to see the woman swimming offshore. He gallantly leaves his shirt on the sand and retreats to the woods, so that she can dry and dress herself. He returns to the beach to see her pushing the shell out to sea and he reciprocates by abandoning his raft. They circle each other in the water and strike up a rapport. Back on dry land, she feeds him shellfish and he is so moved by her generosity and gentleness that he turns away in shame for having slaughtered the turtle. But the woman reassuringly touches his arm and face and they chase each other up the beach before stopping to kiss and this delicately shaded top shot segues into images of the pair swimming together before they float into the clouds in contentment. As sunset bathes the island in a red glow, a toddler crawls towards a crab as it ventures out of its lair. The boy is fearless and reaches out to grab the crustacean and pop it in his mouth. He soon spits it out, however, and the bewildered creature is about to rush for cover when it is snatched by a swooping bird. Joining his parents, the child finds a glass bottle with a stopper wedged in the sand and brandishes it with great pride. His father draws their little family in the sand and is busy sketching some of the animals he remembers when the woman stoops to outline a turtle.

One day, the boy falls into the pool that had nearly claimed his father. But his mother stops him from diving in because she wants her son to finds his own way out. He makes contact with a giant turtle by the headland before his relieved parents rescue him. But this independent spirit grows with him and, while he enjoys playing with his father in the grassland, he loves diving from the high rocks and swimming in the clear blue-green sea, with the twin turtles who have befriended him. But, as the boy reaches adolescence, a tsunami crashes on to the island and flattens much of the forest. In blind panic, he locates his mother. But, even though his father appears to have been swept away, the youth enlists the assistance of three turtles to search for him. Eventually, they find him out to sea, clinging to a bamboo trunk. One of the turtles swims beneath him to support him with its shell, as he starts to sink. But the son brings his father home, where he is embraced by the woman before they stagger across the no man's land that was once their paradise.

Determined to salvage the situation, the family builds a bonfire and the boy is delighted to find his treasured water bottle by the drinking pool. As he holds it up, he imagines what lies beyond the horizon and daydreams about being buoyed away on a towering green wave. Feeling that the time has come to spread his wings, he lies with his parents in a heart-shaped clearing and tells them of his decision. They spend their last night together before he bids them farewell at the water's edge and swims away with his turtle friends.

Time passes and the couple grow old. But they still dance together in the scarlet sunset until, one night, the white-haired man looks up at the moon across the water and wonders about his son and those he left behind all those years ago. In a touching long shot, the woman wakes to find her partner has died and she kneels over him in sorrow. As she lies beside him, however, her hand turns back into a flipper and the red turtle eases herself back to the water and swims away.

Apart from the odd shout and laugh provided by Tom Hudson and Emmanuel Garijo, this is a wordless celebration of humanity's relationship with Nature. But, although there's no dialogue, this is never silent, thanks to the wondrous soundscapes designed by Alexandre Fleurant and Sébastien Marquilly. Indeed, Dudok de Wit might have been advised to rely solely on them and dispense with the melodic Laurent Perez del Mar score that occasionally intrudes upon proceedings that are so delicately delineated by the animators that there's no need for his over-insistent and emotionally manipulative orchestrations.

But this is the only misstep in a beautiful and deceptively simply saga that moves at its own pace without ever seeming to tarry or rush - which is apt, given that the project took almost a decade to realise and that Dudok de Wit once made a commercial called `The Long Sleep' for Macallan malt whisky. But, while the minimalist graphic style is very much the director's own, wisps of Ghibli spirit (largely provided by the great Isao Takahata) infuse the action and add considerably to its charm, as it slips between authenticity and enchantment.

However, credit should also go to supervising animation director, Jean-Christophe Lie, a Disney alumnus who had worked on Sylvain Chomet's Belleville Rendez-vous (2003) and Michel Ocelot's Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) before making his own feature bow with the winning, Zarafa (2014). The characterisation is efficiently expressive, with the absence of a backstory proving no obstacle to ready identification with either the marooned hero and his noble struggles or the chelonian woman and her docile acceptance of fate. But it's the vistas and the sublime use of light, perspective and colour that will linger in the memory and ensure this poetic meditation on life and love will remain a classic of the form.

While it can't quite match The Red Turtle for artistic style, Swiss debutant Claude Barras's My Life As a Courgette is set to be one of the animated highlights of 2017. Adapted from Gilles Paris's 2002 novel, Autobiographie d'une Courgette, this is an inspired collaboration between Barras and writer-director Céline Sciamma, who has already shown a ready empathy with French youth in Water Lillies (2007), Tomboy (2011) and Girlhood (2014), as well as in her screenplay for André Téchiné's Being 17 (2016). But she is clearly on the same wavelength as Barras, who has consistently amused with such innovative shorts as Mélanie (1998), Banquise (2005), The Genie in a Ravioli Can (2006), The Holy Beard (2007) and Land of the Heads (2009).

Nine year-old Icare (Erick Abbate) lives in a garret room with his alcoholic mother (Susan Blakelee), who has given him the nickname, Courgette. He spends his days drawing on the walls with his pencils and crayons and collecting the beer cans that his mother leaves around the apartment. One day, he depicts the father who abandoned him as a superhero on a yellow kite and ties it to a chair leg, so it can fly out of the window. However, in standing on the chair to complete a tower of beer cans, Courgette knocks them through the opening leading to his room and, when his mother climbs the ladder to remonstrate with him, he slams the trapdoor shut and clings to his kite in dread in a corner.

Convinced he has murdered his mother, Courgette is interviewed by Raymond (Nick Offerman), a kindly cop who reassures him that he will be safe at a home for orphaned children run by Miss Paterson (also Blakelee). As he arrives at Fontaines in a police car with the kite flying from the backseat, Courgette sees lots of faces peering from an upper storey window. Raymond promises to visit, as Miss Rosy (Ellen Page) takes Courgette to the dormitory and he places his only belongings - the kite and a beer can - in the drawer under his bed. He is then introduced to his roommates, who are taking a class with Mr Paul (Will Forte), and Simon (Romy Beckman) not only mocks the newcomer for having a potato head, but he also pulls his chair away when he goes to sit down.

Simon also gives Courgette a hard time over supper and vows to discover the reason why he's been sent to the home. So, Courgette goes to bed early and is surprised when Rosy kisses him on the temple, as he is so unused to affection. However, Simon keeps him awake for most of the night by flashing a torch at him and, the next morning, he steals the kite to play in the yard with Ahmed (Barry Mitchell) and Georgie (Finn Robbins). They get into a fight and Simon is so impressed with Courgette for not ratting on him that they chat under a tree. Simon explains that his parents were drug addicts before revealing that Beatrice (Olivia Bucknor) was left behind when her mother was deported back to Africa, Georgie couldn't be left with an obsessive compulsive mom, Ahmed was made homeless after his father was arrested for shoplifting essentials and Alice (Clara Young) was rescued from the predatory dad, who is now behind bars. Having heard these stories, Courgette admits to accidentally killing his mother and Simon shrugs, as he concludes (while throwing a stone at a tweeting bird) that they are all at Fontaines because there is no one left to love them.

When Raymond comes to visit, Courgette describes his daily routine and how Georgie (who always has a plaster on his forehead) eats toothpaste and throws up in class. As he listens, Raymond gets water-bombed by Ahmed, who hates cops because they took his father away. But Courgette is distracted by the arrival of 10 year-old Camille (Ness Krell), who has been deposited at the home by her short-fused Aunt Ida (Amy Sedaris). She bundles Courgette into a cupboard in order to hide from Ida and he likes her even more when she gives Simon as good as he gets at dinnertime. He gets his revenge in the boys' dorm by teasing Courgette for being in love before launching into a hilarious account what grown-ups get up to in bed and how it involves a lot of male wiggling, female agreeing and body part exploding before they both fall asleep.

Curious to know why Camille is at Fontaines, Courgette and Simon sneak into the office after lights out and learn that she saw her father murdering her mother in a crime passionnel before killing himself. But, even though she has been through such a trauma, Camille soon comes to list herself as `sunny' on the mood indicator chart on the cloakroom wall before rushing out to join her new friends on a minibus ride to the mountains for a skiing trip with Paul and Rosy. A pushy mum accuses Ahmed of stealing her son's red-tinted goggles, but he cheerfully gives them away and Ahmed builds a snow bunny, while Beatrice and Alice make a snowman. However, Simon crashes into it during a sledge race with Courgette and Camille and everyone laughs at him.

As darkness falls, Paul plays DJ and the children dance beneath a glitter ball, with Simon trying to be cool with his moves. Unable to sleep. Courgette and Camille slip outside the chalet and he gives her a paper boat as a late birthday present. He admits to sneaking a look at her record, but she feels safe at the home and is glad to have met him. They lie in the snow before returning to the dormitory with armfuls of the stuff for an epic snowball fight. Courgette looks fondly out of the window when they drive away the next morning and kisses the snoozing Camille on the brow before holding her hand for the journey home.

In his next letter to Raymond, Courgette reveals that Rosy and Paul are going to have a baby and he includes a cheekily naive drawing of their carers in the all-together. He also enthuses about Camille. But she is less than thrilled (while reading Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis) to get a visit from Aunt Ida, who is keen for her to come home so that she can get her hands on some money. She hides in her cupboard and confides in Courgette that she would rather kill her aunt or herself than live with her. Consequently, when Courgette is allowed to stay with Raymond for the weekend, he smuggles Camille into his bag and it's only when they are halfway home that she gives herself away. Miss Paterson allows her to stay and they pay a visit to Courgette's old apartment before enjoying themselves at the funfair. Following a ride on the ghost train, Camille proves a sure shot on the rifle range and she wins a teddy bear. But she feels sad because her father taught her how to use a gun and she knows what they are capable of doing.

Raymond shows them the cactus-filled bedroom (which used to belong to the son who moved away with his mother) and they are playing on a swing outside when Ida arrives to drag Camille home. She vows to keep hold of her this time, but, even though, Raymond has other ideas, Courgette is too miserable to be consoled. The others are also upset, with Ahmed suggesting they go on hunger strike. But Simon has smuggled his mini-tape recorder inside the paper boat that Camille left behind and he persuades Ida to pass it on. She uses it to record Ida threatening her and plays it for the judge, who decides that Camille should stay at Fontaines.

During a fancy dress celebration, however, Simon overhears Raymond telling Courgette that he has arranged to foster him and Camille. But, even though he is sad to lose a buddy, he urges Courgette to take the chance because so few people want to care for kids after they're no longer small and cute. They hug, while striving to remain macho, and Simon keeps a stiff upper lip when the time comes to say goodbye. Yet, it's clear to see his pain, as he closes the gates and chases the others back inside. He keeps his mood marker on cloudy for a few days, but cheers up after Courgette sends a letter full of drawings and Rosy gives birth to baby Anthony (just as the chicks hatch in the nest in the courtyard tree) and the kids are amazed that she has every intention of loving him even if he turns into the smelliest, noisiest and most annoying child in the world.

Charmingly designed by Claude Barras and animated over three years in a pseudo-stop-motion style by Kim Keukelaire, the blue-haired, big-eyed Courgette and his pals are pretty irresistible and Céline Sciamma gives them plenty of trenchantly poignant and acerbically witty things to say. She also deftly sketches in characteristics like Alice using her fringe to cover a scar beneath her left eye, while Beatrice rushes to the door in the hope of seeing her mother each time a car pulls up outside. The bedwetting Ahmed and the plaster-wearing Georgie also have their quirks, as they try to stay on the right side of the temperamental Simon and provide Courgette and Camille with unstinting support. But Barras and Sciamma are also prepared to be a little risqué, with the nocturnal sex ed discussion presaging a stairwell glimpse of Aunt Ida's undies and some candid sketches of Rosy and Paul preparing to make a baby. However, there's nothing salacious about these impish details, which greatly enhance the sense of insecurity and innocence that cocoons the kids as they try to come to terms with their situations and emotions.

Having already added Césars for Best Animated Feature and Screenplay to its Oscar nomination, this considered slice of social realism (which Barras has dubbed `Ken Loach for kids') is destined to become a cult hit with children of all ages in this country. Some have criticised the easy way in which difficult issues are resolved. But Sciamma can hardly be accused of ducking the grimmer realities facing modern tweenagers, while Ludovic Chemarin's settings show the institution as spartan, but cosy and safe. With the amusing exception of Amy Sedaris's hissable aunt, the vocal work is admirably restrained, while the ghost train ride neatly satirises the gimmicky theme park POV sequences that have become de rigueur in Hollywood animations. There's even a cheeky homage to the Ice Age franchise in the form of the nut-scarfing squirrel during the piste episode. But it's the inspired correlation between concept, script and execution that sets this apart and will leave many hoping for a sequel.

Actor-turned-director Martin Provost made a fine impression with the biopics Séraphine (2008) and Violette (2013). But while he sought to get under the skin of painter Séraphine Louis and novelist Violette Leduc, he is content to provide surface sketches of the characters created for Catherines Deneuve and Frot in The Midwife. Released in France as Sage-femme, which means both `midwife' and `demure woman', this represents a marked change of pace for both the glamorous Deneuve and the versatile Frot, who was last seen warbling discordantly in a César-winning display in Xavier Giannoli's Marguerite (2015). But, while the leads enliven the engaging, if eminently predictable central storyline, Provost struggles to breath similar life into the subplots. Catherine Frot is a midwife in a small Parisian clinic that is facing closure because it can no longer compete against bigger hospitals offering state-of-the-art facilities. She delivers babies with a calm professionalism with colleagues Marie Gili-Pierre, Élise Oppong and Jeanne Rosa, but can't make up her mind what to do with her future. Cycling home to Mantes-la-Jolie after another long shift, Frot gets a nudge in a new direction from a phone call from Catherine Deneuve, who had vanished from her life some 35 years earlier after she had terminated a romance with Frot's father, who had promptly committed suicide.

Against her better judgement, she travels across Paris to where Deneuve is staying in a friend's apartment. Wandering around in her nightwear, Deneuve informs Frot that she has an inoperable brain and coaxes her into lunching at a nearby café. She tries to chat about old times and is genuinely shocked when Frot breaks the news that her father shot himself in the heart soon after Deneuve had walked out on them. Fighting back the tears, Deneuve gives Frot a ring that her father had given her and hopes that they can see each other again.

Dropping the ring in a drawer, Frot throws herself into her work and tending her allotment, where she turns down an offer of some seed potatoes from trucker neighbour Olivier Gourmet. She also rejects an invitation to work at the new `baby factory' and tosses a bouquet sent by Deneuve into the Seine. However, her world is shaken again when medical student son Quentin Dolmaire turns up at the allotment with girlfriend Pauline Parigot and announces that she is going to be a grandmother. Cross with herself for being pragmatic rather than happy, Frot worries that they will fritter away their career opportunities. But Gourmet tries to cheer her up, as they sit down to a picnic and watch the geese fly overhead.

Scared by the results of her latest scan and the prospect of undergoing a radical new treatment in Louvain, Deneuve asks Frot to lunch. She raises funds in a backstreet card game and appals her teetotal vegetarian guest by ordering a large steak with a bottle of red wine. Urging her to stop feeding her cancer rather than making plans for her funeral, Frot gets upset when Deneuve reveals that she would like to leave her some money to atone for past pain. Indeed, she storms out of the restaurant and gives Deneuve the slip after she tries to explain that she had left her father because he had wanted to quit being a swimming champion and settle down in the country.

However, she is scarcely cheered up by a visit to Dolmaire, as he informs her that he would rather be a midwife than a surgeon. Distraught after losing a baby at birth, Frot allows Gourmet to take her for a walk to the edge of an escarpment overlooking the valley. They sit on a rock and eat caviar from a tin and she asks his advice about what to do with Deneuve. He says he would cross the road to avoid someone who had betrayed him and tries to kiss her. But Frot gets flustered and turns away.

Yet she waits at Deneuve's bedside after she has treatment and allows the doctor to believe that she is her daughter. She agrees to take care of her at home, even though she is miffed by the fact that Deneuve had lied to her about being an Hungarian princess, when she was really the daughter of a concierge and a nightwatchman. Frot also feels exploited when Deneuve asks her to detour and write out five €1000 cheques to her friend, Mylène Demongeot. But she gets tipsy on port and gets the giggles when bumping Gourmet's car twice in trying to pull away. Moreover, she borrows some of Deneuve's lipstick and perfume and not only kisses Gourmet on returning his keys, but also leads him into her shed to consummate their relationship.

Her situation changes again the next day, however, when Deneuve is forced to move out of her lodgings and Frot agrees to let her stay in her room. She buys some fancy food with her card game winnings, but feels unwell after climbing four flights of steps and Frot has to ask Gourmet to keep an eye on her while she goes to work for the last time. Deneuve gets up in the night to sway gently to a Serge Reggiani album and Gourmet is sceptically amused by her airs and graces. But Frot has another brush with her past when Pauline Etienne staggers in from the rain to give birth and reveal that Frot had donated blood to keep her alive 28 years earlier and she apologises for not having come to thank her before.

She gets home to find Deneuve and Gourmet singing along to Léo Ferré and she snaps at Gourmet when he chides her for not letting Deneuve have milk in her coffee. He sidles away when she asks him to leave and Deneuve admonishes her for being so brusque. But she promptly has a dizzy spell and Frot helps her to the bed, where they doze off together. Indeed, apart from a brief tryst with Gourmet in the potting shed, Frot becomes inseparable from Deneuve and they look at old slides of her father at the peak of his competitive prowess. Frot also reveals that he only married her mother because she was pregnant and that she remains angry five decades later. Dolmaire arrives with baby scans and Deneuve is so taken aback by his similarity to his grandfather that she kisses him goodbye with unexpected fervour.

Determined to pay off her debts, Deneuve tries to pawn a watch to go gambling. But she passes out in the shop and Frot is cross with her for taking up smoking again. However, Deneuve would rather die now than have her wings clipped and she jumps out of the car and strops off into the town. Frot runs after her and gives her the ring to pawn and kisses her because her father always used to say that she was the best kisser he had ever known. They go to the allotment and Deneuve has a moment of disoriented tranquility on the riverbank looking at a partially submerged rowing boat before Gourmet shows up in his lorry to take them for a spin. He lets Deneuve take the wheel and she jokes that this would have been the perfect life for a peripatetic like herself. But, as Frot snuggles up to Gourmet in the top bunk in Dolmaire's room, she feels something is amiss and finds a note from Deneuve thanking her for her kindness and wishing her family well for the future.

Frot applies for a job at the new hospital, but is so put off by administrator Audrey Dana's profit-driven pitch that she walks out. Gourmet promises to support any decision she makes about her future, as they drive to the allotment. While he notices that the rowing boat has sunk, Frot opens an envelope containing her father's ring and a piece of paper bearing a single lipstick kiss. She looks into the sky and listens to the breeze rustling the tree tops, with a resigned acceptance that, this time, Deneuve has gone for good and that she will possibly never learn her ultimate fate.

Provost clearly has the Cukor touch when it comes to directing actresses, as Frot and Deneuve follow Yolande Moreau and Emmanuelle Devos in delivering impeccable performances in this bittersweet saga. Deneuve particularly revels in the opportunity to play an ageless wild child, who refuses to take responsibility for anything, including her own health. She retains her essential glamour, but cagily suggests the struggles she has had to endure in staying one step ahead of her creditors and discarded lovers. By contrast, Frot epitomises prim proficiency, as she tries to do her best for her son and her patients. Wearing her professional and personal principles on her sleeve, she could easily be a dull duck. But, as she allows herself to trust her emotions (and other people) again, it's possible to see flickers of the fun-loving teenager who had existed before Deneuve decamped.

The subplots involving Dolmaire and Gourmet are less engrossing, however, as neither character is particularly well delineated. Nevertheless, one is left with the comforting feeling that they will take good care of Frot as she re-finds her feet. Indeed, Gregoire Hetzel's tinkly score should leave no one in any doubt about the happy ever after. But Provost largely avoids sentimentality, even when the narrative takes one of its numerous melodramatic twists. With the exception of some poignantly intimate footage of real-life births, he also keeps Yves Cape's camera at a respectful distance to bind the characters into their surroundings. Yet, for all the craft and nuance, this never quite tugs on the heartstrings.

The action centres on a markedly less dedicated medic in Argyris Papadimitropoulos's Suntan. Continuing the Greek Weird Wave's penchant for exposing the flaws of middle-aged mediocrities, this stinging recessional allegory could form part of a potent `masculinity in crisis' triptych with Elina Psykou's The Eternal Return of Antonis Paraskevas (2013) and Athina Rachel Tsangari's Chevalier (2015). But, while Papadimitropoulos exposes the chauvinist attitudes that have contributed to Greece's ongoing socio-economic woes, he also considers the nation's standing within the European Union, the glum realities of life in an off-season resort and the perils of refusing to accept the passage of time.

Fresh from committing a mainland misdemeanour that is never fully explained, pudgy, balding 42 year-old Makis Papadimitriou takes the ferry to the Cycladic island of Antiparos. It's a grey, squally day and mayor Pavlos Orkopoulos welcomes the new GP with a promise that things liven up in the summer. A small Christmas tree twinkles in his new digs, as Papadimitriou settles into his exile with little enthusiasm. He dines at the restaurant, where lairy local Yannis Tsortekis also reassures him that the island is overrun with pretty girls during the season. But, for now, Papadimitriou has to make do with the ageing patients in a population that drops below 800 after he is called away from a New Year celebration to attend a deathbed.

The mood changes the moment summer arrives, however, as 21 year-old Elli Tringou comes to the surgery with a scraped side after falling off a scooter. She flirts with Papadimitriou, who is enjoying the consultation before Tringou's free-spirited pals, Milou Van Groessen, Dimi Hart, Hara Kotsali and Marcus Collen, burst into his office and start messing around with the equipment, while mocking the doctor for not being a bright young thing. Tringou continues to hold his gaze, however, and she seems sincere when she kisses his cheek and hopes that they can bump into each other again during her month-long stay.

Having failed to find her at the restaurant, Papadimitriou goes in search of Tringou on the nudist beach. He finds her naked and eating watermelon with her friends, but they don't notice him as he lays down his towel, strips off his shirt and applies plenty of sun lotion before waddling into the sea. Looking back at the shore in the hope Tringou has spotted him, he removes his sun hat before bobbing into the water. On returning to his place, he decides to ask Tringou for a light and pretends not to remember her when she seems pleased to see him. She invites him to sit with them, but he quickly realises they have nothing to talk about and, feeling embarrassed by her flaunted body, he shuffles off home.

He goes to buy some trendy summer shirts and heads to a busy nightclub, where he hopes to find Tringou. Instead, he runs into a drunken Tsortekis, who enthuses about the different nationalities milling around the island and boasts that his friend slept with a Japanese girl. Realising he's wasting his time, Papadimitriou heads home, stopping en route at a snack kiosk, where gets a free wrap from one of his elderly female patients.

Undaunted, he sidles back on to the beach the next day and is delighted when Tringou calls to him from the sea. He slops on his cream before galumphing into the water and is taken aback when the naked Tringou does a handstand in the shallow tide. Just as Papadimitriou submerges himself, however, they announce they are ready for lunch and he rides with them on the back of Tringou's quad bike, as they have a water fight on the winding road to a beachside taverna.

During the meal, the girls tease Collen about having a gay experience in a glory hole before turning their mockery on Papadimitriou, who has no idea what they are talking about and sings along to `John Brown's Body' like the good-natured boob he is. He pays for them all to go clubbing and bops along to the music with his eyes closed. But there is no sign of the others when he opens them and he pushes through the crowd to see Tringou emerge from the ladies. She asks if he can still get erections and, when he answers in the affirmative, she congratulates him with a carelessly patronising smile and disappears into the throng.

Anyone else would take the hint, but not Papadimitriou. Consequently, he turns an old lady away from his surgery at 3pm and heads back to the beach. As Hart is inviting him to a pool party, he is recognised by Syllas Tzoumerkas, a plastic surgeon friend from way back, who gives him a naked bear hug and describes how his life has changed since he became a father. He reveals that the party host, Konstantinos Melitas, is his neighbour and hopes to see him later. By the time they hook up, however, Papadimitriou has kissed Tringou during a party game. But she also insists he smooches Hart and he skulks off to the side of the pool to clear his head. Tzoumerkas sits beside him and jokes that they are getting a bit old for this kind of bash and asks Papadimitriou why they drifted apart. He shrugs and mentions a mishap in his personal life, without going into detail.

The next day, Papadimitriou gets a ticking off from mini mart owner Kostas Gouzelis for turning away the old woman with back pain and reminds him of his duties. But the doctor makes straight for the beach with cold beers for everyone and tries to laugh it off when Tringou pulls down his swimming shorts. At the club that night, he revels in being the centre of attention, as he struts his stuff and crowd surfs to a heavy metal variation on `Bolero'. Lying back, he looks into the flashing lights and feels accepted.

The sense grows the following day when Tringou gets sand in her eye and Van Groessen urges Papadimitriou to remove it with his tongue. Despite knowing better, he is unable to resist the sensual thrill of coming to his beloved's assistance and he licks her eyeball in Buñuelesque close-up. She rewards him by bringing him lunch in a hammock and covering him with a blanket when he has a nap. But, when she turns up at the surgery the next day to tempt him into playing hooky, he insists on seeing his patients before accompanying her. He nips home to change into his trunks and Tringou follows him into his bedroom. She winds up a musical snow globe playing the Wedding March and seems to invite him in for a kiss, only to push him away with a giggle as he inclines his head.

Papadimitriou clings to her as she drives the quad bike to a remote inlet, where she strips off and frolics in the water. Watching from the dunes, he lights a cigarette and wonders what will happen now they are finally alone. Tringou lies on top of him and they kiss before she removes his shorts and straddles him. However, he doesn't last long and they return to the town when she complains of boredom. Dropping him off by the surgery, she reassures him that he will have plenty of time to atone for his performance. But, when he tours the clubs that night, there is no sign of Tringou or her friends and he drowns his sorrows the next day with a mid-afternoon binge before crawling into her tent at the camp site in the hope of finding her.

Crashing on his bed, Papadimitriou imagines Tringou and her pals dancing the night away and his mood is scarcely improved the following day when a volleyball knocks over his beer on the beach. He winds up downing shots with Tsortekis, who introduces him to a boorish friend who insists that every foreign female on the island is up for seduction. As Papadimitriou watches the dance floor, Tsortekis makes a play for Maria Kallimani and she suggests that they go on to another club. However, when Tsortekis makes a clumsy lunge at her, she screams blue murder and Tsortekis accuses Papadimitriou of being a traitor when he holds him back.

Yet, while Papadimitriou is not proud of accepting oral gratification for his chivalry and spends the next afternoon floating aimlessly on his back in the sea, he is back on the hunt for Tringou when darkness falls. Staggering between bars, he throws up at the side of the road before making his way to the beach, where lithe naked bodies are celebrating a birthday with fireworks. Utterly out of place, he stands in the middle of the gyrating group and tries to work out if he's with Tringou's clique.

Dawn finds Papadimitriou on all fours on the beach and he calls Tringou's name in bitter confusion. He is late for his surgery and the patients are not impressed that he is putting tourists before them. But he is soon back out on the prowl and finds Collen smoking dope by the beach. Strutting into the camp site, he snaps at Tringou when she jumps into his arms and demands to know where she has been. She wonders why she needed his permission to go to Mykonos on the spur of the moment and is disgusted when he asks if she slept with anyone else while she was away. He complains that he has endured five days of hell without her, but she orders him to leave and the group pretend to be asleep when Papadimitriou shows up at the beach clutching carrier bags full of cold beer.

After watching some bevvied boors playing drinking games in a bar, Papadimitriou returns to the camp site and follows Tringou into the shower block. He peers under the doors to see which stall she is using and waits for her. Unsurprisingly, she is furious and orders him to leave her alone. He pleads for a second chance so that she can leave with memories she will cherish forever and she throws up her hands in despair, as he tries to continue the conversation from the wrong side of a fence. As a top shot fixes on his bald spot, Papadimitriou stands in dejected despair and weighs up what he still thinks are his options.

After another bar session, he returns to the camp site and sits outside Tringou's tent as she has sex. The next morning, he confronts her on the road and asks for a minute of her time. She tries to let him down gently by saying there has been a misunderstanding. But, ignoring Collen's threats, Papadimitriou tells Tringou that he has been in emotional turmoil for some years and truly believes that they could be an item. However, when he admits his love for her, she sniggers at him and, as he friends applaud his pathetic performance, she walks away without dignifying his profession with an answer.

Despite the humiliation, Papadimitriou goes to the beach to watch Tringou from a distance. He ignores an emergency call and dozes off, only to wake to find countless messages from the mayor. Hitching a ride back to town, Papadimitriou arrives at the surgery to get an earful from the anxious mother of an injured girl. But, even though he apologises for letting things slide out of control, Orkopoulos fires him and the local bartender implores him to leave without making things worse.

But Papadimitriou is no longer capable of thinking straight. He goes to the nightclub and tries to dance along to `Bolero' as though nothing has happened. Collen and Hart tell him to sling his hook and Tringou pleads with him to leave her alone. A scuffle breaks out and Papadimitriou is ejected by the bouncers. But, rather than cut his losses, he charges back to the surgery to fill a syringe with sedative before breaking a rear window and abducting Tringou from the dance floor. Bolting the bathroom door, he bundles her into a cubicle and injects her, as she struggles. As soon as she is unconscious, he posts her through the open and window and bolts after her, while Tringou's friends kick down the door.

Slinging Tringou over his shoulder, Papadimitriou manages to hide in the undergrowth, Hart and Collen chase after him, before dragging Tringou across the scrubland to his surgery. He lays her on the couch and pulls down her shorts. But, as he goes to unzip himself, he is overcome with fear and loathing and starts to sob. Struggling to compose himself, he sits down and starts cleaning up the scratches on Tringou's legs. But, as the scene cuts to black, one suspects this may well be his last act as a physician.

Right up until the last 10 minutes, this is a compellingly credible study of an schlubby schmuck making a fool of himself with a woman half his age. But Papadimitropoulos and co-scenarist Syllas Tzoumerkas (who has directed two notable pictures of his own in Homeland, 2012 and A Blast, 2014 ) push their luck too far with the risibly implausible and eminently resistible denouement that blurs any moral message they might be seeking to expound. Combined with the shallow characterisation, this cumbersome tonal shift reduces the principals to pieces that are moved around to goad more the politically correct members of the audience. Some will question the depiction of Tringou, Kotsali and Van Groessen, although others will argue that there is also plenty of full-frontal male nudity and that Christos Karamanis's camera is only presenting Tringou as Papadimitriou sees her. But this still feels more like a capriciously misanthropic act of provocation than the logical conclusion to deluded fantasy.

The decision to withhold the reasons for the outstanding Papadimitriou's susceptibility is more laudable, however, as it makes his need for acceptance seem simultaneously sad and creepy. Pitched somewhere between Professor Rath in Heinrich Mann's The Blue Angel and Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, the doctor is more socially inept than perverted, as he genuinely believes that winning the heart of the princess will bring about his redemption. But the unthinking hedonism and brattish cruelty of Tringou and her fecklessly privileged set is no excuse for his behaviour, as his infatuated immaturity is far from harmless (as was the case with Michael Caine's lecherous holidaymaker in Stanley Donen's Blame It on Rio, 1984). Doubtlessly, some will read this as a parable on Greece's treatment by its wealthier partners in the EU, but the more telling social aspect of the story is the contrast between the peaceful penury of the off-season and the profitable pandemonium of the peak period. Such touches confirm Papadimitropoulos as a talent to watch after Bank Bang (2008) and Wasted Youth (2011). But, while his stylistic nous and ear for a cracking soundtrack are not in doubt, he needs to rein in the temptation to indulge in glib narrative excess.