An Impossible Love is one of the best French films to reach the UK in the last few years. Perhaps because its leading actors aren’t that well-known here, the film struggled to get cinema bookings. The BBC describes the film as a ‘romance’ and then as a drama. In fact the film is a romance that eventually becomes a drama. Perhaps it is really a melodrama – the music score is effective.

Leading French film scholar Ginette Vincendeau comments that it is an example of a modern ‘woman’s picture’, directed by Catherine Corsini and adapted by Corsini and Laurette Polmanss from the novel by Christine Angot.

It tells the tale of a mother and daughter and their difficult relationships with the man who refuses to be a husband and struggles to be a father. The novel is a form of ‘autofiction’ so this is a film based on a true story.

It appeared in France just as the #MeToo movement began to gather momentum. Corsini offers a narrative spanning fifty years from the late 1950s to the 2000s with stunning performances, passion and pain and many questions to discuss.

The film is available on iPlayer until the 14th December and notes will be available to accompany the online discussion.