There's a great scene in Couscous that will strike a chord with anyone who has ever hosted a dinner party where the main course is hours late. Desperate to distract attention from the non-arrival of the fish couscous, the gorgeous Rym (Hafsia Herzi) resorts to performing an extremely erotic belly dance to a restaurant full of 100 rowdy people who've been served too much alcohol and very little food.

I've never gone quite that far with my guests, but I must concede: it's a brilliant diversionary tactic.

Set in a North African dockside community in southern France, Couscous is a great foodie film in the tradition of Babette's Feast and Big Night. But it is filmed like a political thriller.

Made redundant from the shipyard, the sixtysomething Slimane (Habib Boufares) lives a life of quiet desperation until he decides to open his own floating restaurant specialising in fish and couscous dishes (the grain and the mullet of the film's French title).

He persuades his chaotic extended family, including his girlfriend's daughter Rym, to help out on opening night. Then, thanks to the sexual shenanigans of his son, the famous couscous goes missing. Slimane is forced to hunt it down on his motorbike - as the clock ticks down agonisingly.

Writer-director Abdel Kechiche, dubbed the French-Tunisian Ken Loach, films working-class life with real colour and humanity. Working with mostly amateur actors, he built up performances in extensive workshops - and it shows. The sex scenes and family arguments at meal times are astonishingly real. And while Kechiche is spot-on about the casual racism endured by immigrantsin France, we also see the Arab family bullying their tragic Russian sister-in-law.

Showered with awards at film festivals, Couscous is wild, funny, often desperate. It revels in the sensuality of food but we never forget about the lives of the people slaving away in kitchens to prepare those exotic gourmet dishes. Don't be put off by the running time of 147 minutes - you emerge totally wrung out, but oddly triumphant.