Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

The reputation the French have for creating romantic comedy non pareil is well-deserved. In the last few years alone, we've had sophisticated charmers from Shall We Kiss to Priceless to Après vous. Now comes yet another, sporting a knock-out premise that is so original that it almost makes it impossible for the movie to live up to its nifty/nasty concept. That it finally does is due as much to the mysterious workings of chemistry between actors (Romain Duris and Vanessa Paradis) and the talent of new director Pascal Chaumeil (pronounced Show-MAY), as to the film's very funny and unusual script. 

I’ll not give away, plot-wise, even that very smart premise -- and, yes, it is tempting to talk about. Instead, be content with knowing that Heartbreaker (L'arnacoeur) involves a dashing and sexy young man (Duris), his nifty sister (Julie Ferrier) and her slightly demented boyfriend (François Damiens), a lovely woman about to be married (Paradis) and her father (Jacques Frantz), who for some reason is not particularly keen on the marriage. Out of this mix, Chaumeil and his script-writing team (Laurent Zeitoun, Jeremy Doner and Yohan Gromb) have spun their sometimes flaky flax into something approaching gold.

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***½

We look to the films of Agnès Jaoui -- The Taste of Others, Look at Me, and now Let It Rain (Parlez-moi de la pluie) -- for a kind of confirmation: the suggestion that life, however harried and bizarre, is full of marvelous little things, moments sad or sweet and often funny that quietly resonate. There are plenty of these moments in the writer/director/actress' new film. The husband in bed at the end of the day, feeling abandoned because his wife is reading; the French-Algerian young man who has decided to make a documentary and now must endure round-after-round of eyebrow-raising from the "French"; there's even a scene of characters getting high on pot that manages, against all odds, to break new ground.

Reviewer: James Van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

The exquisite French film Mademoiselle Chambon has been co-adapted (with Florence Vignon, from the novel by Eric Holder) and directed by Stéphane Brizé, who a few years ago, gave us the quietly entrancing Not Here to Be Loved [sadly not yet on DVD in the US]. Brizé now offers an ever better, though just as quietly entrancing, film -- this time using two of France's best actors at the very top of their form: Vincent Lindon (Friday Night) and Sandrine Kiberlain (Apres Vous). A film with minimal dialog, but never obviously so, it relies on the in-the-moment response of the two actors, who are simply marvelous at expressing their inner selves while appearing to camouflage their feelings.

An underground lair serves as the point of inspiration for this "deeply whimsical fantasy comedy (with echoes of Jodorowsky's Rainbow Thief) from French cause célèbre Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amélie, The City of Lost Children)," set in a post-9/11 Europe. In Micmacs, underdogs battle heartless industrial giants, our gang relive the battle of David and Goliath, with all the imagination and fantasy of Buster Keaton. "At its best, Micmacs is a robust, enjoyably lunatic game," writes Tasha Robinson. "It's social commentary by way of a good Looney Tune." And now you have a chance to win the Micmacs DVD thanks to a giveaway sponsored by GreenCine and Sony Pictures Classics.