“The Rose Maker” (M) ***

THIS horticulture comedy/drama is French director/co-writer Pierre Inaud’s second feature.

The most comfortable adjective to summarise “The Rose Maker” (La Fine Fleur) turns out to be “likeable”. Movies about growing plants are few and far between. The meat on this one’s bones combines a tad of technical terms with a smidgeon of human observation to emerge at the end of its 95 minutes that left me regretting that it didn’t come with smello-vision – a soon-forgotten (in only one movie of small importance) thriller that tried to give added substance to the cinematic experience.

On the other hand, Catherine Frot, with credits for 94 titles since her debut and now in her early sixties is vigorous and watchable playing Eve, who with her loyal assistant Vera (Olivia Côte) is trying to make a living out of the rose farm she inherited 15 years ago from her father. 

Her rival Larmazelle (Vincent Dedienne) has again beaten her at the annual rose festival with a newly created hybrid showing the right qualities – colour, hardiness and above all, fragrance. 

Eve knows she has one of the parent plants. And that there’s no way she can afford to buy the other. The film’s primary task is to infiltrate Larmazelle’s off-limits private nursery, steal it and hope that the hybridising of the two strains will deliver the result she so desperately needs.

In one of those happy happenstances that movies are so good at, the local prison sends Eve a trio of miscreants nearing the end of their incarceration, none of them with any horticultural knowledge. Her task is to rehabilitate them. Samir (Fatsah Bouyahmed) is trying to escape his tiny apartment. Nadège (Marie Petoit) is shy and awkward. Fred (Manel Foulgoc) becomes the centrepiece of the film, making the most trouble for the most outcome.

The story unfolds in lovely French scenery, beds of roses stretching over gently rolling hillsides. Its human-interest content is subtle and credible. Eve doesn’t necessarily want or need a man for personal comfort. If you saw “Perfumes” early last month (I gave it four stars), you’ll recognise the skill that she values highly. She has it and so has Fred. The film doesn’t need the anticipated cliché to reach an agreeable and unexpected outcome.

At Dendy and Palace Electric