Alain Resnais, director of classics like “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” died in March at age 91. His final film adapts an Alan Ayckbourn stage comedy about three couples (Sabine Azéma, Hippolyte Girardot, Caroline Silhol, Michel Vuillermoz, Sandrine Kiberlain and André Dussollier) in the English countryside. They’re connected by their louche, womanizing (and unseen) friend George Riley — who has only six months to live.
Filmed on abstract sets, it’s full of playful touches, such as lines delivered in front of a screen that looks like a comic-strip panel, and glimpses of a mole puppet popping out from a fake lawn.
The acting is in an arch, measured style that seems to throw off the comic timing. But if this isn’t a grand finale (2012’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet” felt that way), it’s still an affectionate coda for a master.