French Film Review: The Mystery of Henry Pick

Believe the hype: Bezançon’s adaptation of David Foenkinos’s bestseller is all it’s cracked up to be. Meet Jean-Michel Rouche, a freshly-sacked book critic with a chip on his shoulder and too much time on his hands. When a manuscript unearthed from the depths of a local library in a Breton backwater –purportedly penned by long-dead, barely literate pizzeria owner Henri Pick, whose literary legacy up to that point amounted to a quickly-scribbled postcard – becomes an instant sensation, Rouche sniffs out a red herring.

Together with Pick’s daughter, who for all her loyalty to her late father is not all that convinced either, he embarks on an all-guns-blazing quest to expose the hoax and hunt down the real author. A feel-good crowd-pleaser without airs or pretensions – the big reveal is right out of left-field!