Ray Pride

(Fauteuils D'Orchestre) France's official entry to the 2006 Oscars for Best Foreign Language Film, Danièle Thompson's "Avenue Montaigne" is yet one more Altmanesque roundelay, more tidy than those of the late master, yet still an enjoyable one. Thompson demonstrates the same lightness of touch as in her 2003 "Jet Lag," in a story about a Parisian waitress, Jessica (Cecile de France), who works on the chic street of the title and encounters bourgeois figures from art collectors to film directors to pianists, in her daily turns. (And certainly lighter than Thompson's script for Chereau's "La reine Margot.") Jessica's a Candide, Paris is beautiful and bittersweet. Avenue Montaigne is beautiful and bittersweet. Thompson's cast, including Valérie Lemercier, Albert Dupontel, Laura Morante, Claude Brasseur, and Sydney Pollack, lead lives that are beautiful and bittersweet. (Pollack's successful American film director character intends to make the love story of Jean-Paul Sarte and Simone de Beauvoir.) 100m.

"Avenue Montaigne" opens Friday at Landmark Century.

(2007-03-13)

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