Although they share a smattering of DNA, estranged half-brothers Guillaume and Armand could not be more different. Guillaume (Arieh Worthalter, 2016’s The Take), Dad’s favorite, is a police detective; Armand (Achille Reggiani, Miss Impossible), Dad’s ignored bastard son, is homeless. When their father dies, you can guess which one gets nothing.
Inheriting the titular bowling alley, Guillaume offers his little brother a peace offering: a job to run it and a place to live above it. Armand happily accepts, on the condition Guillaume stay away. And that sets into motion an inadvertent cycle of codependence that marks their largest point of contrast: One devotes his nights putting women he picks up at the alley into the ground; the other, devoting his days to investigating who put them there.
This French-language film operates in the lane of crime thriller I’m drawn to most: intelligent and intentionally paced, like a novel that comfortably straddles the literary and the popular. As with many of those books, a formula sits directly beneath the fancy window dressing, meaning when particular elements kick in at particular points of the story, you instantly know the function each is set up to serve. With Saturn Bowling, when Guillaume gains a girlfriend in an animal rights activist (newcomer Y-Lan Lucas), any alarm of predictability isn’t falsely triggered.
That’s not nearly enough for disappointment to overthrow enjoyment; part of such plotting machinations are comfort food. I’m less enthused with the weighty hunter/prey analogy running through the third act — too much symbolism is a thing — but overall, Thick Skinned director Patricia Mazuy, writing with frequent collaborator Yves Thomas, knows what she’s doing. The little film that results is a solid, flawed gem. —Rod Lott