Stillwater

An oil worker from Stillwater, Oklahoma is out of his depth when he travels to Marseille to help his jailed daughter (Abigail Breslin) prove her innocence in this drama with echoes of the Amanda Knox case. With a short fuse and not a word of French, errant dad Matt Damon seems an unlikely saviour, and needs to temper his gung-ho attitudes to get anywhere. It's a template for a slam-bang action flick, yet Spotlight director Tom McCarthy is far more interested in character - Damon doesn't wear a MAGA cap but that's basically where he's coming from, and the story explores how he simplistically views the world and how he's seen, ambivalently, by others. Unfortunately, the plodding crime-solving narrative rather lets the side down, while a parallel thread involving romance with a bohemian single mum (Call My Agent! star Camille Cottin) is just about saved from cliché by a marvellous turn from Lilou Siauvaud as her wily young daughter. Held together by Damon's astutely observed performance, the film is undeniably absorbing, though at 140 minutes it's perhaps too baggy and discursive to grip as strongly as one would like.