If you watched Deerskin (2019), you’ll know what to expect from ‘fabulist’ Quentin Dupieux.

The premise is suitably oddball; Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker) are a 40-something couple who buy a nice suburban house that has a surprise. In the basement is a tunnle that takes them forward in time by 12 hours whilst also making the traveller three days younger. You can see the dilemma – would you trade half a day for a little more youth? How many days would you trade? As if this isn’t surreal enough, Alain’s boss Gérard (Benoît Magimel) has just had a non-EU-approved electronic penis fitted.

After the initial dramatic set-up, which is mainly about the schism between different ideas of self-worth and future goals, the story doesn’t really go anywhere. The final act is primarily an extended montage of the years unfolding where we see in summary the repercussions of the choices made. Reading the synopsis on the MIFF website, it seems the story is a commentary on the pandemic and I suppose I get that a bit – staying in a bubble, the effect on mental health, swapping out the natural for technology. It doesn’t feel like a clear or interesting message though – is Alain an anti-vaxxer who wants the freedom to live as he chooses? Maybe I’m searching for a subtext where there isn’t one.

Drucker is great as the brittle Marie and Roxane Arnal as her more youthful self is spookily similar to her, to the point where I assumed she was her daughter.

By the end credits I felt amused but not moved.

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Have you seen this film? Let me know your thoughts.