Screening at Cinecenter and Rialto.

Can love, heroin and motherhood go together? In Le refuge (The Hideaway) by François Ozon, they can. The film completes Ozon’s trilogy about death and mourning (after Sous le sable and Le temps qui reste). But the film is about much more. After her boyfriend dies of an overdose, Mousse (Isabelle Carré) discovers she is pregnant. She’s not particularly keen on becoming a mother, but can’t bring herself to have an abortion. She exchanges the heroin for methadone, and retreats to a summer house in a remote village where Paul (Louis-Ronan Choisy), her brother-in-law, comes to visit her.

Naturally, Ozon wouldn’t be Ozon if he didn’t do some genre-bending. Le refuge is an intense drama about a woman at a turning point, but there’s also an element of suspense: until the last scene you’re never sure whether Mousse will keep the child and love it, or not. Thoughts always linger that she may do something terrible. At the same time, the film is a tender love story; after difficult beginnings, Paul and Mousse become very fond of each other. At the same time, the film has elements of a tender love story; after difficult beginnings, Paul and Mousse become very fond of each other. But if that sounds like the cliché of  ‘lonely woman-finds-true-love-while-on holiday-in-Tuscany’, be reassured, the film moves in entirely different directions.