The addition of star power - Depardieu or someone of his ilk - might have injected more interest to what was always going to be a hard sell.

Blier's penchant for deep-black humour allows him to get some funny, nasty jabs in at Charles's self-pitying, petit-bourgeois existence.

The scenario pauses to congratulate itself too often, but Anne Alvaro is superb as Dujardin's anxious and besotted housekeeper.

It is heartening that Blier at 72, an aging icon from French cinema's glorious heyday, can still undertake such challenging material and deliver a whimsical, immensely watchable, if ultimately flawed, new film.