“I thought you liked carrots,” says Beatrice (Juliet Stevenson) to her son Elliot (Alex Lawther) in their holiday home in France. But this isn’t an assertion from a mother, disappointed at her child’s lack of exploratory tastes with regards to their cuisine. Rather, this is a recurring theme in the film – a knowing glance between family members, with a wry, pithy comment signifying that more is known than is let on.

Director Andrew Steggall’s debut feature film is awash with the rich colours of late summer in the Languedoc region of Southern France. The leaves are just turning from green to reds and yellows. The chemical balances of Elliot’s hormones are tipping him from mirrored masturbatory moments, to a longing to share his romantic and sexual experiences with his newfound friend Clément (Phénix Brossard). Meanwhile, the breakdown of Beatrice’s marriage to the somewhat emotionally cold Philip (Finbar Lynch) leaves her facing a smaller future, both physically and emotionally: their holiday home has been sold (no more jaunts to France in Elliot’s school holidays) and the framework of what she thought love was (perhaps a dutiful servitude?) is being scrubbed out in the changing of a season. Cinematographer Brian Fawcett has tenderly captured the private, contemplative moments shared by Elliot and Beatrice in a naturalistic, measured style reminiscent of the work of talented Polish cinematographer Urszula Pontikos, in her previous two films: WEEKEND and LILTING.

Steggall has drawn in an impressive cast for the film. DEPARTURE features three of the big tropes in cinema parlance that work rather well together: The Rising Star (Lawther); The National Treasure (Stevenson), and The Exciting Newcomer (Brossard). Being a UK-French co-production, and shot on location in the Sud de la France, it feels quite right the newcomer for a UK is Phénix Brossard. As Clément, the teenager holidaying in the country away from Paris, he carries with him a muscular, exteriorised presence, somewhat reminiscent of a young, brooding Marlon Brando; which contrasts perfectly with the attributes of Alex Lawther’s Elliot. Last seen in Morgan Matthews’ X+Y and then as a young Alan Turing in Morten Tyldum’s THE IMITATION GAME, Lawther is a revelation. With an affection for poetry, vintage French apparel, and walks in the French countryside, Elliot has the capacity to very easily come across as wet and occasionally unlikeable. Yet Lawther channels a mesmerising sense of ‘otherness’ in his acting – the like of which we see perhaps in the American acting counterparts of Dane DeHaan and Paul Dano – although Elliot’s manner is quintessentially English. The energy between Clément and Elliot in a scene nearing the end of the film is worthy of inclusion in the BFI’s newly-launched Love Season trailer, yet the film’s release in the UK might just miss the end of this touring collection of thematically-linked films. How Steggall was able to get this level of performance out of his actors, particularly Alex Lawther with the aforementioned carrot (a brave scene for a young actor in his first feature film lead), is at once a mystery and equally a testament to his directorial skills.

The film’s title is multi-layered and open to interpretation. There’s an imminent physical departure from a holidaying way-of-life in France, intrinsically linked to an unhappy marriage which is also just about to be left behind. A stage of life is evolving from one phase to the next for Elliot and Beatrice: their mother/son bond is slowly starting to shift away from the dependency of a child on its parent towards the choppier waters of teenage life. Perhaps what the film does best is to reveal the power that a departing presence or state of mind can have on the narrative of a film in the right hands of a thoughtful, Dvorak-loving director. Steggall has obviously put a lot of care and effort into his first feature film. Yes, he visits familiar territory for lots of inaugural films from new directors: the coming-of-age story. Yet he has expanded on that idea to encompass a narrative as interested in the mother as well as her son, and a film that feels (in the best way) like a contemporary piece of European arthouse, which also radiates the warmth and familiarity of the Best of British that the UK Film Industry so often produces. There’ll be more from this director in years to come!

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