By Robert Hull

The movies that live in the glare of the London Film Festival’s spotlight are invariably those with star names attached or advance buzz from festivals such as Cannes, Tribeca or Sundance. But among the many joys of a fortnight crammed with film-feasting are the unexpected gems … and Diego Luna’s directorial debut, Abel, is definitely one.

Abel’s press screening came just an hour and a half after the end of Black Swan’s unveiling to journalists and industry delegates, and it’s true that chatter had barely moved on from Aronofsky’s dazzling, draining epic. However, inside a few minutes Luna’s funny, touching and beautifully played comic-drama underlined why cinema remains so affecting – and why its diversity is important.

Abel is a nine-year-old boy whose development difficulties have landed him in a mental hospital. As it’s an all-girl facility he can’t stay and needs to move to another institution far away from his mother, older sister and younger brother. By cajoling Abel’s doctor his mother secures the chance to bring him home for one week before his move to the new hospital. If he can reconnect with his family then maybe his future lies with them.

It’s a scenario that Luna treats sensitively but in which he finds delicate and broad humour, while also showing us characters we can believe in. In feel it’s similar to Goodbye Lenin!, Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 award-winning film about a son protecting his mother from a fatal shock after a long coma. What underscores it, and Abel, is that they don’t require pyrotechnics or bombast to carry the story or, for that matter, flashy camerawork and scene-chewing performances.  Small-scale movies may live in the shadow of bigger-budget offerings but they do have a habit of proving that story will always be cinema’s main ingredient.