Mammuth Review

Gérard Depardieu is on lively form in Belgian iconoclasts Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern’s entertaining road movie, as a retired casual worker who discovers he can’t qualify for his pension unless he has payment slips from his previous employers. Travelling on his Mammuth motorbike, Depardieu begins to feel like a hirsute dinosaur as he returns to haunts that have changed beyond recognition and rarely for the better. Yolande Moreau as his testy wife, Miss Ming as his eccentric niece and Isabelle Adjani as an old flame provide able support. But Depardieu dominates, as the offbeat humour drifts occasionally into the surreal and poignant. The denouement misfires, but this is an affectionate and anarchic meditation on our inability to stem the inexorable passage of time.