If you think they ‘don’t make movies like that any more’, François Ozon is here to prove you wrong. In an energetic homage to MGM of old and its stable of beloved directors (Douglas Sirk springs to most minds), Angel is melodrama writ large. Based on Elizabeth Taylor’s scorching satire, it arrives preloaded with the staples of its genre: a feisty young female, a handsome drunk, a tragic love, an inconvenient war, sumptuous sets, acres of velvet and some of the most obvious rear-projection seen in decades.

It is 1905 and Angel (Garai) is the precocious daughter of a grocer. But she sees herself as a celebrated romantic novelist and before you can say fiddle-dee-dee, she’s caught the attention of a publisher (Neil). Fame and fortune quickly follow, as does eternal love in the handsome shape of philandering Esmé (Fassbender). His sister, Angel’s doting assistant, holds the estate together as events traverse the entirety of human experience.

What prevents Angel from degenerating into pointless parody is Ozon’s acute understanding of the purpose of melodrama. He plays the story for rightful amusement as Angel disappears into her own imagination, then plunges deep to matters more urgent, creating an altogether more interesting commentary on denial and revisionism than mere tribute could afford.

And all this under the saturated tone of an art-department drunk on colour. As with 8 Femmes, camp is only half of it, but what a half! While Garai’s fashionably ripe performance nails every scene, the film recalls Gone With the Wind, Brideshead Revisited and perhaps Absolutely Fabulous before rounding off with one of the best death-bed scenes in years. Ozon’s devotees might take pause at the idea of an English-language bodice-ripper, yet they miss the point. Angel is an audacious work, an extraordinary film and a remarkable achievement from one of Europe’s most interesting directors.

// COLIN FRASER