Edinburgh Film Festival

The Midwife

four stars

Dir: Martin Provost

With: Catherine Deneuve, Catherine Frot

Runtime: 117 minutes

MARTIN Provost’s drama is a double hander featuring two of France’s finest leading women, Catherine Deneuve and Catherine Frot. Which Catherine is the greater? It’s a close run thing as Provost tells his tale of a Parisian midwife (Frot) whose fraught relationship with her father’s lover is unexpectedly renewed after decades of estrangement. Deneuve, playing the mistress, breezes into the film on a cloud of Chanel and scarves, charming everyone she meets, save for the one woman she truly wants to impress. Only French cinema knows how to mine the best from its older actresses, and the two Catherines, given the chance to shine, grab it.

Tomorrow, Odeon 2, 6pm; Saturday, Cineworld Edinburgh, 3.15pm

Alison Rowat