Bellamy — known as Inspector Bellamy in the U.S. — is a French murder mystery film released in 2009. It is the last film of celebrated French director Claude Chabrol and the only time he worked with star Gérard Depardieu. Chabrol said in an interview that the film is like a "novel that Simenon never wrote", a kind of "Maigret on vacation".
Plot summary
Inspector Paul Bellamy is a seasoned and obese Parisian police detective on vacation with his wife Françoise at her family home in Nîmes. Their tranquil holiday is complicated when he cannot resist becoming involved in the case of a man, insurance broker Emile Leullet, who recently attempted to fake his own death in a car crash near Sète for his mistress and the insurance money. Leullet, hiding under an assumed name and altered appearance and unsure what to do now, seeks out Bellamy for help.. Leullet may or may not have killed the homeless man whose corpse was found burned in his car. The dead man, Denis Leprince, was a son of a local judge, now also dead. Bellamy's alcoholic half-brother Jacques Lebas shows up unexpectedly and soon he and Paul are bickering bitterly and Paul is back on the bottle himself, which he had previously given up. Françoise is not thrilled with all the disruptions. In between socializing with their gay dentist friend and his partner and quarreling with Jacques, Paul finds time to informally interview and repeatedly question Leullet, Leullet's wife, Leullet's mistress, Leprince's former lover, and many other local denizens. As things become more complicated, family tensions threaten to overwhelm professional obligations. Paul, a professional tough guy, finds himself pondering the meaning of his own life and relationships. Leullet turns himself in to the clueless local police chief who, apparently, has been sleeping with the mistress. He is acquitted at the trial where he is represented by Leprince's girlfriend's lawyer who renders the defense in the form of a Georges Brassens song. Jacques absconds with Paul's car and is soon reported dead in a car crash, but only after Paul has revealed to Françoise the dark secret underlying his fraught relationship with his half-brother and the source of his lifelong tristesse. The film ends with a W.H. Auden epigram: "There is always another story/There is more than meets the eye".
