THE FATHER OF MY CHILDREN

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Writer/director Mia Hansen-Love has made half of a good movie.

Until the filmmaker disregards the rules of breaking character for her protagonist, "The Father of My Children" conjures Gregoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing), a likeably flawed film producer whose proclivity for making art films has put his company so far into the red that it can hardly pay its bills.

Gregoire's habit of talking on his cell phone while driving is somehow nearly forgivable.

However, his speeding tendency costs him his driver's license while on his way home to the birthday of one of his three daughters.

With his adoring Italian wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), Gregoire enjoys taking the family on sunny day trips to explore churches and France's natural beauty.

He likes to give impromptu history lessons to his kids. Gregoire keeps a stiff upper lip while trying to attract investors to rescue his latest production from shutting down, even as he talks privately about resorting to a secret ace he's kept up his sleeve for years.

And then it happens.

Gregoire does something so unforgivably out of character, and so destructive to the narrative, that the audience can only scratch its head over how a film could go so wrong.

It's one thing to "express the paradox of contradictory movements within the same person" (as the filmmaker has said of her film), and quite another to negate all rational purpose for the drama at hand. "The Father of My Children" is a grand, overflowing, mistake of a movie.  

Not Rated. 110 mins.