Nicole Garcia’s *Milo* follows Alice, an ex-con and former left-wing activist, who returns to a small French town to reconnect with the son she was forced to abandon 20 years earlier. The somber drama blends family secrets, working-class hardship and film-noir elements, with Marion Cotillard delivering a raw, powerful performance as a woman confronting the consequences of her past.

Alice finds work as a waitress while secretly observing Milo, now a 20-year-old mechanic raised by another family. His adoptive mother recognises Alice as both his birth mother and the activist responsible for a bank attack that killed a police officer; the story also involves drug dealers and wealthy landowners. Although the political backstory is broadly drawn and the plot is familiar, Garcia’s restrained direction and psychologically convincing performances give the film emotional weight.