IN writer/director Israel Horovitz’s story, three characters confront events that happened before two of them were born, in the context of ownership of a Paris apartment subject to a viager.

What, I hear you ask, is a viager? It’s a gamble, authorised under law, on a seller’s life expectancy. To the buyer, it offers good but risky prospects. To the vendor, it brings rest-of-life financial security. The nearest Australian relative of a viager is a reverse mortgage.

Mathias (Kevin Kline), who wants to be called Joe, arrives in Paris from the US, carrying a document from his estranged father vesting title to the apartment. But title isn’t vacant possession. At 92, showing no sign of imminent mortality, Mathilde (Maggie Smith) occupies it under a viager. Her middle-aged spinster daughter Chloe (Kristin Scott Thomas) has never moved out.

The film combines subtle humour with acidic observations of Mathias wheeling and dealing to get his hands on the nine million euros that a developer is willing to pay. Mathias comes from a difficult family background. Mathilde’s history includes lovers and hard times. Who is Chloe’s sire? Who is Mathias’ mother?

Arriving at the necessary conclusions, with issues more or less neatly resolved, is an experience more pleasing for the audience than the characters. Smith, Kline and Scott Thomas make a formidable ensemble. That engaging, albeit less-than-handsome character actor Dominique Pinon is the real estate agent, and Noémie Lvovsky is Dr Horowitz whom Joe consults to investigate whether he and Chloe are siblings.

At Palace Electric, Capitol 6 and Dendy