A SORT OF ALFRESCO MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, CONVERSATIONS WITH MY GARDENER SHOWCASES THE ACTING TALENT OF FRENCH STARS DANIEL AUTEUIL AND JEAN-PIERRE DARROUSSIN, PLAYING ARTIST AND HIS GARDENER RESPECTIVELY, WHOSE FRIENDSHIP GROWS OVER SEVERAL MONTHS OF TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING FROM LOVE TO LETTUCE.

A journeyman landscape painter (Auteuil) from Paris returns to reclaim the country house he grew up in. Finding the vegetable patch overrun with weeds, he hires a local gardener (Darroussin) to lick it back into shape. The two men soon realise they were childhood classmates whose lives took very different paths after they were both expelled for a prank back in elementary school. Despite their differences in class and life experiences, the two develop a natural rapport and take to calling each other nicknames — ‘Dauber’ for the painter, ‘Gardener’ for the other.

Over the course of several months they swap advice and life stories, covering such topics as Dauber’s dissolving marriage and Gardener’s earlier career as a railway man and trade unionist. Sometimes the anecdotes come illustrated by flashbacks, but more often veteran director Jean Becker just lets the two mellow-voiced thespians unfurl their monologues like rich bolts of silk, unadorned with any cinematic trickery, producing frequently mesmerising results.

The drama picks up incrementally as the setting widens to incorporate scenes of Dauber in Paris, and the plot thickens when one character develops a worrying stomach complaint. However, the film’s real pulse points are the moments when the two men are just shooting the breeze. It’s a testament to the actors’ skills that the whole thing proves so gripping. — Leslie Felperin.