In Your Wake 2007

This taut, brooding crime drama plumbs the relationship between a dangerously immature, adrift father and his introverted son. Twenty-year-old Marco is heading out into adult life: he has a job and a flat. Lucid but reserved, he limits his horizons to fit his comfort zone. Then his father, Gabriel, who decamped some years ago - an electrifying performance by Jacques Gamblin - turns up, seedily flamboyant, full of big schemes. Despite the resentment he feels, Marco, needy for paternal affection, finds himself drawn into his father's erratic orbit, hoping and half-believing in the older man's plan for them to open a nightclub together - once the necessary funds have been amassed. The mirage of the future father and son partnership increasingly leads Marco into his father's murky realm, and ultimately forces him to reassess the limits of the ties that bind and to confront Gabriel's true nature - and his own. — SR