A comedy so sharp it draws blood

The central performance is a marvel of restraint. There are no big speeches, no obvious moments of catharsis, just a slow accumulation of small choices that, by the end, has become almost unbearably moving.

"I wanted it to feel like a memory," the director told me when we met in a cafe near the festival venue. "Not a story somebody is telling you, but something you half remember happening to you."

Nothing is wasted. Every shot, every line, every silence is doing something

There are flaws, of course. The middle section sags slightly, and a subplot involving a neighbour is introduced with some care and then simply abandoned. But these are quibbles about a work that is, in every important respect, alive.

It is also, and this should not be underestimated, very funny. The humour comes from character rather than jokes, and it arrives exactly when the tension needs releasing.

A singular vision

The ending will divide people. Some will find it too abrupt, others too neat. I found it exactly right: an answer to a question the film had been asking, very quietly, from the beginning.

It is rare to encounter something this confident, this fully realised, that does not seem to be trying to impress you. It simply is what it is, and trusts you to meet it there.

Whether it finds the audience it deserves is another matter. But those who do find it will, I suspect, hold on to it for a long time.