★★★☆☆

Beginning in the late 1980s, Mother And Son chronicles the tumultuous journey of West African immigrant Rose, who moves with her two young sons from the Ivory Coast to the Parisian suburbs, where she secures work as a hotel cleaner. Inspired by the background of the father of her children, Caucasian writer-director Léonor Serraille considers the difficulty of scratching out a satisfying existence as a disadvantaged outsider.

Annabelle Lengronne is hypnotising, bringing to life a knotty, reckless and believably frustrating protagonist, whose ambitions for herself and her offspring are admirable. Rose’s kids, Ernest and Jean (played by Milan Doucansi and Sidy Fofana as children, and by Kenzo Sambin, Ahmed Sylla and Stéphane Bak as the years wear on), are exceptionally bright and yet, over time, Rose’s pluck and ability to look out for them falters. Meanwhile, her relationships with men, including the ludicrously monikered Julius César (Jean-Christophe Folly), derails things further.

Serraille is the force behind 2017’s brilliant Jeune Femme; in Mother And Son she trains her lens on another fascinating female in this full-blooded study of a marginalised figure. Lengronne puts in a funny, expressive and characterful turn playing someone who refuses to be meekly grateful, chafes against those that help her and won’t have her future decided for her. However, when the focus shifts from Rose to her less well-drawn sons, some of the complexity and vitality goes with her. Rose is a remarkable, highly credible creation but Mother And Son loses its edge when she disappears from view.

Mother And Son is in cinemas from Friday 30 June.