IN THE 2004 road movie, Le Grand Voyage, Nicolas Cazalé impressively played a young man at odds with his deeply conservative Moroccan father until they get to know each other over a long car journey. In The Grocer's Son, Cazalé is equally effective in the not dissimilar role of Antoine, a sullen, self-absorbed slacker who leaves his rural home and his gruff, cold father (Daniel Duval) for the independence of city life in Paris when he is 20.

The film begins 10 years later, when the father suffers a heart attack and Antoine is cajoled by his mother (Jeanne Goupil) into returning to their Provencal village for the summer. While she runs the family grocery, Antoine takes over from his father in driving their mobile store through the countryside, catering mostly to the elderly and infirm. “It reeks of death around here,” Antoine observes as he reluctantly takes on his new duties.

Clearly inheriting his father’s grumpiness, he alienates the regular customers with his curt, humourless approach. Antoine’s friend and neighbour (Clotilde Hesme) joins him for a few weeks and encourages him to lighten up, although he is reluctant to express his deeper feelings for her.

This deftly structured story of suppressed emotions and unresolved problems blown out of proportion with time is the first feature from writer-director Eric Guirado, who brings a documentarist’s keen eye for detail to bear on the characters and their surroundings. Guirado is neither preachy nor patronising in celebrating the simple life of the pastoral region’s ageing community, which triggers much of the movie’s light humour.

Cazalé subtly catches the shifts in Antoine’s temperament on his journey of self-discovery while driving a van full of groceries along narrow, winding roads surrounded by beautiful natural landscapes.

Directed by Eric Guirado. Starring Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Daniel Duval, Jeanne Goupil Club, IFI Dublin, 96 min