More releases this week...

THE INFORMANT! (15)

4/5

WE all want to do the right thing, but few of us ever put ourselves on the line for the sake of a greater good.

Mark Whiteacre did. He was the highest-level executive in American corporate history to turn against his own employers.

In the early 1990s, Whiteacre decided to blow the whistle on a global price-fixing scam in the agricultural industry by turning informant for the FBI.

By agreeing to wear a wire to various meetings, he made the authorities privy to the goings-on in boardrooms of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).

FBI agents were delighted as the case slowly but surely took shape, but there was something their star witness was keeping from them.

Great swathes of his testimony and snippets of insider information were the product of a fertile and overly-active imagination.

He also neglected to mention millions of dollars in embezzled funds, one of the perks of his position as a company vice-president.

Steven Soderbergh recounts this incredible true story of bluff and bluster in The Informant!, adapted by Scott Z Burns from Kurt Eichenwald's book of the same name.

Whiteacre (played by Matt Damon) is a brilliant biochemist at agricultural conglomerate ADM.

He has a beautiful wife Ginger (Melanie Lynskey), who is dedicated to him and their children.

A tip-off from a Japanese rival suggests there is a mole in the company who is sabotaging the plant, so Mark's bosses call in the FBI.

A routine visit from FBI Special Agent Brian Shepard (Scott Bakula) to install a wire tap at the Whiteacre family home leads to a shocking revelation: Mark's bosses are party to a worldwide price-fixing scam.

Brian is stunned and, after consulting his bosses, he and partner Bob Herndon (Joel McHale) prepare Mark for a role as a snitch, unaware that the family man is leading them all up the garden path.

The Informant! is a fascinating, and at times amusing, true story about an everyman who pulled the wool over the eyes of some of the US government's most highly-trained officers.

Damon gained 30lbs and an unflattering moustache for the role, delivering a tour de force performance as a man lost in his own web of lies, deceit and insider dealing.

A voiceover reveals some of the truth of Mark's feelings as he imagines himself a hero in one of his favourite John Grisham page-turners.

When the truth about Mark's actions is revealed, we begin to squirm in our seats as he attempts to dig himself out of a hole with even more fibs, but only ends up going deeper and deeper, past the point of no return.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life (15)

5/5

THIS was the French sleeper hit of last year, a film that took more than one and a quarter million admissions at the box office, proving strong opposition for the bland and inconsequential Hollywood competition.

I was mesmerised by it last year, and it has lost little of its charm and power on a second viewing.

It's an ensemble piece about a wayward French family.

Robert (Jacques Gamblin) and Marie-Jeanne (Zabou Breitman) have three very different yet talented children: fiercely independent Albert (Pio Marmai), wine-loving Raphael (Marc-Andre Grondin) and rebellious and increasingly sexualised Fleur (Deborah Francois).

The fates of these five people unfold in Remi Bezancon's drama, which traces 12 tumultuous years by focusing on five key dates, where tensions come to a head and the misfortune teaches each of the family members a lesson.

Beautifully written and sharply directed by Rémi Bezançon, this is a poignant portrait of family life.

A fellow critic dismissed this with a shake of his head and muttered to anyone who'd listen that it would only appeal to the French. I fiercely disagreed: this is a pulsating dark comedy that will strike a chord on this side of the tunnel too.

Every one will identify with this family – they fight, love and live through first loves, first jobs, family gatherings and family departures, and it plays out against an excellent soundtrack with tracks from Bowie, Lou Reed and the splendid The Divine Comedy.

It's a truly great film; and Rémi Bezançon must be congratulated.

The Sea Wall (TBC)

4/5

THIS splendid adaptation of Marguerite Duras's debut novel is a thinly-veiled memoir of the writer's youth in French Indo-china during the 1930s, writes Mike Polanyk.

Isabelle Huppert plays a farmer who faces bankruptcy when the sea wall protecting her land collapses.

Given a year's reprieve by the local governor, she invests everything into the land she hopes to pass on to her children, the headstrong Joseph (Gaspard Ulliel) and Suzanne (Astrid Berges-Frisbey).

When the son (Randal Duoc) of a wealthy Vietnamese business magnate takes an interest in the teenage Suzanne, the mother finds herself compromised.

While she finds herself encouraging her daughter into a relationship in order to acquire money, she refuses to condone a relationship that is against her principles as a member of the ruling elite.

I have no idea why this film is this getting such a limited release – it's a movie that most distributors would have been proud of 10 years ago, but sadly seemingly seem unable to deal with any more.

This is a rich, moving drama, beautifully produced and eloquently staged.

I was captivated by the story and highly impressed by the performances – it's an intelligent movie that deserves a wider audience than the one it will reach.

Morris: A Life with Bells On (12A)

When writer-producer-actor Charles Thomas Oldham took this charming British comedy to the major movie distributors they said they loved it, but there was no audience for it. Let's hope they're wrong, as it's on until December 3 at the new Phoenix.

There are thousands of fans on Facebook who disagree with the distributors' safety-first verdict, and several leading thesps too.

Oldham persuaded Derek Jacobi and Greg Wise to join his venture, and French character actor Dominique Pinon – of Delicatessen fame – too.

It's a heartwarming mockumentary about a Morris troupe who incur the wrath of traditionalists by pioneering an extreme version of freeform Morris dancing. Ken Russell, reviewing it in the Times, called it near flawless. And the Seattle Film Festival jury seemed to agree. It won the runner's-up prize.