Congorama

There's a simple reason that the filmmaking Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardennes keep casting Olivier Gourmet (The Promise, The Son, etc.) in their films: the bespectacled Gourmet is a rumpled sort of Everyman, and an excellent actor to boot. French Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau's Congorama begins in Gourmet's native Belgium. Father to junior tennis player Jules (Arnaud Mouithys) and husband to café proprietor Alice (Claudia Tagbo), who is a refugee from the Republic of Congo, Michel (Gourmet) works as an engineer, but aspires to be an inventor. Also living with Michel is his ailing father, novelist Hervé (the late Jean-Pierre Cassel), who one day unexpectedly informs Michel (whose birth coincided with the Congorama exhibit at the 1958 Brussels Fair) that he was adopted. Traveling to Montreal to seek out his biological parents, Michel is unable to locate any “Legrands,” but a local priest (Gabriel Arcand) introduces him to a diamond grader named Louis Legros (Paul Ahmaranhi), the son of an inventor. Coincidences soon pile up, but Congorama—which won a Canadian Genie for its inventive screenplay—is definitely a trip worth taking. Highly recommended. (K. Fennessy)