Outwardly the life of Jean-Luc (Berling) appears enviable. A successful Versailles gerontologist with a clinic specializing in anti-aging treatments, he has a beautiful young wife, Isa (Régnier); a loyal work assistant and mistress Myriem (Casar); and a brother, Patrick (Guillon), who acts as his chauffeur.

However his controlled existence is disrupted by the sudden reappearance of his seventysomething father Maurice (Bouquet), who some two decades earlier had walked out on his family to become a doctor in Africa.

The interloper seems to have no regrets about his past actions or his lack of paternal feelings, telling his son, "I'm not obliged to love you." And to the latter's dismay, Maurice develops a warm rapport with Isa...

The first of writer-director Anne Fontaine's five feature films to be distributed in England, "Comment J'ai Tué Mon Père" belongs in a tradition of French cinema which dispassionately dissects bourgeois repression.

Co-scripted by Jacques Fieschi, who wrote "Un Coeur en Hiver", it's an elegantly photographed and impressively acted familial drama, steeped in ambiguity: it's unclear whether we're watching a flashback to actual events, or viewing an individual's anxiety-filled daydream.

Described by one character as "a plain-clothes priest", Bouquet's Maurice retains a suitably spectral, mysterious presence, drifting through the almost abstract locations.

Avoiding simplistic psychological "explanations", "The Way I Killed My Father" scrutinizes the Oedipal father-son conflict with icy assurance, climaxing in an emotional confrontation between Maurice and Jean-Luc of venomous intensity.