Abdellatif Kechiche’s 151-minute family drama is like a song with a refrain you want to repeat, repeat, repeat. “The Secret of the Grain” (La grain et la mulet, aka Fish Coucous) is a rich ensemble drama that tugs the heart in many directions. It rushes past like a breeze. Maghrebi-descended Slimane (Habib Boufares) is a dockworker in the small French port city of Sete. Beaten down after thirty-five years at the same job, he decides to open his own restaurant, which involves bringing in four children from his first marriage, the ex-wife in question, his girlfriend and his girlfriend’s daughter (the remarkable Hafsia Herzi). Kechiche is attuned to the small details of life, whether tragic or sexy or tinged with racism or suggestive of class struggle, never neglecting the tumult of all his full-blooded characters. A huge hit in France, it was one of the last productions by Claude Berri, who died recently while shooting a film. 151m. (Ray Pride)
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