Master of the dark farce Francois Ozon’s follow-up to the widely acclaimed Potiche takes a step away from the satirical toward the literati.

Disgruntled literature teacher Germain (Fabrice Luchini), facing another term of cell phones and two-line essays, is surprised when new student Claude (Ernst Umhauer) hands in a voyeuristic dissertation on a fellow classmate’s lifestyle. At first displeased with the story’s obviously flammable content, Germain and his art-dealer slash pornographer wife (Kristen Scott Thomas) are lured chapter by chapter into Claude’s tale of obsession and jealousy.

Layered between the aspiring literary talent of Claude and the failed literary ambitions of Germain is the perfect lifestyle of an average family, the fast-failing ardour of Germain and the ever-present desire to belong. Is Claude’s fixation on the Raphas, and in particular on the lacklustre mother (Emmanuella Seigner), borne of adolescent sexual naivety or frustration at having been abandoned by his own mother?

As Germain finds himself trapped in the complex web of deceit Claude has sewn, what unfolds is a human drama based on simplicity and domesticity.

In the House may well be Ozen’s long-awaited international breakthrough, touching as it does on the youthful exuberance of Catcher in the Rye while simultaneously demonstrating that stories are essential to a healthy life – even if the characters and their authors blur themselves into both factual and fictional liaisons that at times cannot be separated, no matter how fast the pages are turned.