L'Auberge Espagnole

The French “mélange” might be the most accurate description of the title of Cédric Klapisch's charming but overly busy comedy-drama about Xavier (Romain Duris), a rather stiff, self-absorbed graduate student from Paris who shares a flat with a polyglot assortment of roommates during a year's stay in Barcelona. Romantic entanglements and personal crises--including his affair with the young wife of an expatriate French doctor and the unraveling of his long-distance relationship with the girlfriend he left behind--ensure that Xavier will go home a changed person: liberated, far more tolerant and cosmopolitan, and no longer willing to embark on the stiflingly conventional career for which he'd previously been doggedly preparing. The loose, uninhibited tone of the picture is quite winning, but Klapisch's use of numerous camera tricks to spice up the story--speeded-up sequences, split screens, careening pans, whiplash edits, abrupt inserts and the like--is often excessive. But while Klapisch's previous feature, When the Cat's Away, was simpler, sweeter, and more emotionally satisfying, the stylistic flourishes here aren't fatal. L'Auberge Espagnole may be relatively slight and too pleased with its own cleverness, but it's also sufficiently brisk and colorful enough to provide a good deal of enjoyment. Recommended. (F. Swietek)