MATHIEU AMALRIC, that infuriatingly charismatic French actor, makes his directorial debut with a drama about a declining impresario – the type of character John Cassavetes might have loved – struggling to reconnect with his children and rebuild his professional career.

Or is that really the theme? Amalric has, it seems, been following the recent revival in American burlesque and has also attempted to make a film concerning that exotic diversion. Joachim, the oily, fumbling protagonist (played with reliable élan by the director) has hooked up with a troupe of aging US dancers and, for his own concealed reasons, taken them on a tour of France. They bump. They grind. They bump some more.

Unfortunately, the dance routines and the bawdy adventures seem somewhat bolted-on to Joachim’s story. One feels that, rather than watching an integrated whole, we are observing a personal drama that comes with its own ever-so- slightly naughty floorshow. Jugglers would have done equally as well. So would contortionists.

The women, all veteran burlesque performers, reveal impressive reserves of character and earthy zest. Sadly, their mundane dialogue, as is often

the case when Anglophone characters speak in foreign- language films, comes across as oddly distant and criminally under-directed.

The good news is that Amalric finds space to create another of his engaging, supernaturally sleazy outsiders. Wearing an absurd collar and a deeply unnecessary moustache, he flings equal degrees of poignancy and hopelessness about the screen. Playing a former television producer who has become hopelessly estranged from his family, Amalric rails and flails with a sincerity that few other contemporary thespians can manage.

It’s just a shame that, on this occasion, this fine actor didn’t have an equally talented artist behind the camera. Weirdly, the Jury at Cannes thought differently and awarded Amalric the best director prize. Don’t do that, guys. It will only encourage him.