‘The Innocent’ offers a roller coaster ride for an ingenious heist

Rarely do films maintain the delicate balance between comic and serious moments for their entire storyline. And yet French director Louis Garrel does just that in his third feature “The Innocent,” an ironic title as amusing as it is playful. Proving the extent of his talent, Garrel not only directed but also co-wrote and stars in this blissfully entertaining experience.

Louis Garrel is Abel Lefranc, a guide for young school children at a local, quite impressive aquarium. Significantly, in huge tanks behind Abel as he lectures, threatening-looking sharks cruise. Along with co-worker/friend Clémence, Abel agonizes over an accident that killed his wife. Meantime, the proper story catalyst here is Abel’s vivacious mother Sylvie, an acting teacher in a prison near Paris. There, Sylvie falls in love with and soon marries inmate Michel, soon granted early release.    

When a lovely flower shop, Sylvie’s dream, becomes a reality thanks to the backing one of Michel’s friend, Abel’s suspicions kick into high gear with Abel as proficient a spy as Peter Sellers in "The Pink Panther" series. It’s giving nothing away to anyone who has ever seen a film to suggest that Michel has another heist in process. However, the unusual target, signals the inventiveness here, a truckload of Iranian caviar to be stolen while the driver eats his usual meal at a truckstop. In fact, for a quick ninety-nine minutes, no scene fails to surprise and delight, thanks in no small part to superb casting from Garrel as Abel to Anouk Grinberg as Sylvie, Roschdy Zem as Michel, and Noémie Merlant as Clémence.

From wild driving scenes to complex, intimate dialogue exchanges, from pain to exuberant joy, from shallow dissembling to profound truth, “The Innocent” ricochets through genres: slapstick, heist film, romance, family drama, and crime thriller. Julien Poupard’s cinematography is equally adaptable, from neon bathed to hard-edged lighting. Throughout, pretense serves selflessness in a bon-bon of a treat more substantive than it seems. Receiving eleven César nominations (the equivalent of our Oscars), in French with English subtitles, “The Innocent” screens at Webster University’s Winifred Moore auditorium Friday, June 2, through Sunday, June 4, at 7:30 each of those evenings. . For more information, you may visit the film series website.