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Nicholas Winding Refn's Drive stars Ryan Gossling as the nameless protagonist (much the same conceit as Ryan O'Neals nameless driver in Walter Hill's The Driver (1976). Critics have fawned over what could be described oxymoronically as an art-house movie; and Refn even received the prestigious director's award at this year's Cannes (nothing to do with Von Trier being persona non grata, of course). All in all, I was expecting a masterpiece. Instead, I was left with a limp, lifeless and boringly self-conscious menage of cinematic motifs, borrowed heavily from Tarantino, Lynch and Walter Hill. The result is an uninspired, embarrassing mess of a movie. It doesn't deserve to be seen in the same league as the infinitely superior Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, which Refn has plundered for purely aesthetic gains and nothing else. He even had the temerity to use Lynch's ex-musical partner, Angelo Badalamentti, who uses his typically Lynchian sounds to little effect. Intringuingly, at one stage, even Lynch's music from Inland Empire seems to have been deliberately mimicked as some kind of in-joke on Badalamentti's behalf (or perhaps an ironic riposte for not being chosen by Lynch to provide the Inland Empire OST). While Lynch offers abstraction and depth, Drive is all surface gloss and bokeh – there is no mystery to behold or engage the viewer; just the bland, vacuous features of Gossling, who is a blank canvas and nothing else. Critics have predictably lapped up its style and gratuitous violence as heralding a new talent, much like they fawned over Tarantino a decade ago. Take away the violence and uninspiring story, and what's left is nothing. Drive is ultimately all style and no substance. Avoid.

Christopher Honoré's La belle personne is a compelling curiosity; transposing the courtly world of Madame de La Fayette's classic 17th century story, La Princess de Cleves to a modern-day French lyceé (with its own courtyard), the film is a compelling observation of "courtly" love in a postmodern world; although it would be convincing to argue La belle personne is not very modern in its presentation of present-day bourgeoise Parisian etudiants. This is a world that exists in its own hermetically-sealed bubble, free from Facebook and the internet. It's a world where 60s navel-gazing reigns supreme.

The film follows the tribulations love brings, or perhaps more realistically, the tribulations of what one perceives as 'love', even if it's unconsummated. The title alludes to 17-year-old Junie (Léa Seydoux), whose aura and presence recalls a ghostly incarnation of Godard's muse Anna Karina (Perhaps a self-conscious homage to Godard by the FEMIS-teaching Honoré?). Following the death of her mother, Junie refuses to live with her father (for unknown reasons), choosing instead to live with her cousin, Mathias, in a haute-bourgeoisie Parisian arrondisement close to the school she and Mathias attend. ' Soon enough Junie becomes the default objet d'amour for the male etudiants, namely love-sick Otto (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) at first.

However, she soon troubles the cad-in-school Italian teacher, Nemours (the lanky yet ever-foppish Louis Garrel) with her otherworldly presence, prompting him to quickly end two amorous entanglements with a middle-aged fellow teacher and a stubborn 16-year-old female student. However, as one would expect fron the source material, tragedy foreshadows this story but it does not detract from this near-perfect made-for-TV drama.

Every performance is realistic and natural. Special kudos to Garrel and Sedoyx for their work here. Honore follows the mis-step that was Chansons D'amour with this elegant, masterfully composed concoction; even if you could argue La belle personne seems to be an inverse reworking of Chansons. With the ensemble of regulars (Garrel, Hesme, Mastroianni, Leprine-Ringuet etc), traversing both films, La belle personne perversely feels like a sequel somehow taking place in a parallel world to Chansons. In spite of some questionable if strained directorial nods to the Nouvelle Vague (mentioning them would spoil the end), Honoré shows restraint and an uncharacteristic sense of detachment. The way he directs Seydoux is a revelation. Her ghostly presence haunts the film in every aspect and should be noted as a performance of great integrity and resolve from this promising actress. As a modern-day exploration of courtly love, La belle personne, is worth seeing numerous times to catch the many subtleties it withholds on first viewing.