Va Savoir

Interlocking romantic misadventures beget both amusement and broken hearts in this City of Lights charmer with a semi-serious edge and several superb performances. Directed by Jacques Rivette (The Gang of Four), the film's affairs are set in motion by an actress (Jeanne Balibar) revisiting an old affair while her co-star and current lover meets a beautiful young bookworm (Hélène De Fougerolles) while researching a long-lost 18th century play. By coincidence, the bookworm's disreputable brother is pursuing the current wife of the actress's ex. Rivette maintains a jocular atmosphere even as people's feathers get ruffled in this increasingly complicated romantic roundelay. Driving the film is Balibar's elegant performance, so thick with nuance that you can tell when her stage performances have been effected by the events of her life. While others' emotions are sometimes a little too vague (especially considering the 154-minute run time), the characters are such a delight, overall, that the film still works. Recommended. (R. Blackwelder)