Heading South

Director Laurent Cantet's fourth feature abandons the contentious French workplaces of HUMAN RESOURCES and TIME OUT for sunnier climes, but this Haitian idyll is an equally excoriating look at labor and exploitation. Haiti, the late 1970s: three years after sneaking away from her husband and achieving her first orgasm with 15-year-old local Legba (Menothy Cesar), 47-year-old Tennessee native Brenda (The Sopranos' Karen Young) returns to the Hotel Petite Anse as a divorcee, ready to pick up where she left off. But Brenda is surprised to find that Legba has become a fixture of sorts at the resort, one of the favored gigolos who cater to lonely women of a certain...