Saying goodbye

Francois Ozon is France's answer to Michael Winterbottom, a director who crosses genres.

This film, however, is the second part of a stylistically pared-down trilogy about loss that began with Under the Sand, in which Charlotte Rampling distinguished herself as a wife whose husband has disappeared.

Here, Melvil Poupaud is equally good as a 30-year-old homosexual coming to terms with terminal cancer.

He is not a hero: having refused chemotherapy, he is horrid to his live-in lover, only partly to get him to leave before the trauma of his death; he is nasty to his pregnant sister, and uncommunicative to his loving parents.

In short, he wants to die unaided by sympathy and on his own terms.

But he is not as cold as he sounds. Despite being gay, he agrees to impregnate Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi's waitress - with her sterile husband's permission.

He also spends an affectionate night with his elderly grandmother (the iconic Jeanne Moreau), a meeting which is at the emotional centre of the film.

Ozon accomplishes this sad story with considerable restraint and secures performances that seem truthful.

There is a superb scene at the end where an emaciated Poupard goes to the beach and lies there motionless as everyone packs up and leaves at sunset.

We do not know whether he is dead or not - but it sums up an affecting film with real, if properly understated, emotion.

Time To Leave (Le Temps Qui Reste)
Cert: 18