KINGS AND QUEEN Desplechin Retrospective

When single, working mother Devos discovers her father is gravely ill, she receives little support from her ex-boyfriend, a capricious, tax-dodging violinist (Cesar winner Amalric) recently committed to a mental health institution, where he improvises hip-hop choreography and verbally spars with his drug-addled lawyer and placid hospital supervisor Catherine Deneuve. Desplechin’s outsize tragicomedy sticks to the director’s self-imposed maxim (borrowed from Truffaut): every minute, four ideas.