Léa Seydoux brilliantly holds the center of Bruno Dumont’s unexpected new film, which starts out as a satire of contemporary news media before steadily spiraling out into something richer and darker.

The bourgeois and extremely eccentric Van Peteghem family—among them Juliette Binoche, Fabrice Luchini, and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi—have settled in for another summer at their cliff-top villa overlooking the picturesque Slack Bay. Their leisurely rhythm of sunbathing and seaside constitutionals is soon interrupted by the arrival of two bumbling inspectors investigating a string of tourists gone missing. 

French auteur Bruno Dumont, best known for uncompromising and austere dramas, proves with the comedy Li'l Quinquin that he is capable of shifting gears without conceding his signature style. This absurdist, metaphysical murder mystery opens with the discovery of human body parts stuffed inside a cow - a literal bete humaine - on the outskirts of the English Channel in northern France. The bumbling and mumbling Captain Van der Weyden (played by Bernard Pruvost) is assigned to investigate the crime, but he has to contend with a young prankster, the mischievous Quinquin (Alane Delhaye), as he proceeds to investigate the case.

In Bruno Dumont’s farcical follow-up, Li’l Quinquin is all grown up and still living in the Côte D'Opale. When the townsfolk start behaving strangely, our beloved heroes Captain Van Der Weyden and Carpentier begin to suspect an alien attack.