Romain (Melvil Poupard) is a successful Parisian fashion photographer, a cold, aloof type in his early thirties, who receives a sudden and terminal cancer diagnosis. Given a month or two to live, Romain embarks on a stilted journey to say goodbye - in his own disconnected way - to his boyfriend and his family, all distant planets on the lip of Romain's emotional black hole.

This relatively brief feature plays very much like an extended version of La Petite Mort (The Little Death), Ozon's short film from 1995, about a dejected gay Parisian photographer Paul, who connects with other men by taking photos of them at the point of orgasm, and who travels out of town to visit his dying father and a long-suffering estranged sister. In Time to Leave, Romain keeps his strongest venom for his sister, while the distant father role seems to have folded back into the make-up of the insolent gay son character - Romain - who, despite his hipness, has all the warmth of an ice cube.

Elegant and succinct, Time to Leave covers quite a bit of ground in 81 minutes. Numerous subplots are economically realised, including a lengthy branch off that involves a sultry waitress and her sterile husband in search of a sperm donor. Romain's jilted twink boyfriend Sasha (Bjorn Andresen-lookalike Christian Sengewald) seems to have more-than-ample screen time, as does Romain's valiant single mother sister Sophie (Louise-Anne Hippeau). The extended glimpses we get at Romain's satellites are rich and true, and they come in and out of our vision like peepshow performers then disappear without a trace, just as they must have appeared to Teflon-coated Romain.

Time to Leave even finds time for an extended stay at Chateau Jeanne Moreau, an imperious space where taut jowls and cognac lips are the order of the day. Moreau is Left-Bank perfection as Romain's empathetic grandmother who smoulders in noble exile at her rural estate while her immediate family keep her at a horrified distance. She swaps stories about legions of lovers and lost opportunities with her beloved grandson, with whom she bonds anew on the revelation that like her, he too is close to death. The magnificent Moreau seems to have aged little since she sung "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" and told Brad Davis he had a huge cock in 1982's Querelle - long may she stay with us (check out her imdb.com filmography: 127 titles and counting!)