3 Hearts

This French romantic drama stars Benoît Poelvoorde as middle-aged tax auditor Marc—a man not handsome, but sensitive and compassionate—who falls in love with Sylvie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) over one long night of walking and talking, and then loses her thanks to a missed connection. Sometime later, Marc meets Sophie (Chiara Mastroianni), without realizing that she is Sylvie's sister. Plenty of contrivances ensue that beggar logic, and there's no spark between Poelvoorde's dull workaholic with a hangdog face and Gainsbourg's Sylvie, whose emotions churn like shockwaves through her very being. Mastroianni's much more neurotic sister is a little less mysterious—she is emotionally fragile and Poelvoorde is a stable presence as well as devoted partner—but you have to take the swoony romance turned obsessive passion here on sheer faith. Director Benoît Jacquot doesn't play this as high melodrama, but more as a down-to-earth tragedy. There are well-observed scenes of the sisters at home with their mother (played by Mastroianni's real life mom, Catherine Deneuve), and Jacquot is very good at depicting everyday intimacy and the goodness in characters who are nevertheless being destructive, but he simply doesn't give them deep enough inner lives to make their sad story matter. Optional. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include an interview with director Benoît Jacquot (40 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for an uneven film.] (S. Axmaker)