At first you expect "The Day I Saw Your Heart" to be as frothy as the Frappuccino that Justine (Mélanie Laurent) orders at the opening of this French romantic comedy, one of this weekend's Atlanta Jewish Film Festival highlights as the three-week event hit full stride.
At 27, Justine is a commitment-phobe who's more of a chip off the old block than she's able to admit. That's because she spends most of the movie being angry at her father Eli (French film legend Michel Blanc), who has the blunt way with words and oily manner of George Costanza's father Frank on "Seinfeld."
A bit of a caricature of a meddling Jewish dad, Eli has been emotionally remote with Justine and her half-sister Dom (Florence Loiret Caille) since they were little girls, and both have grown into women prone to act rather childlike.
Justine in particular is a quirky-funny wreck, leaving a string of hunky boyfriends in her wake, many of whom her dad remains golf and business buddies with behind her back. She has a stable job as an X-ray technician but in most other ways is unstable: bunking on her stepsister's sofa after her most recent breakup, presumably unable to hold down her own apartment; frustrated at her inability to quite pull together a possible art breakthrough involving X-rays; needing more from her dad than he's able to deliver; and, of course, on the endless search for her next boyfriend/breakup.
The jittery world of coffee-swilling Justine tilts further off course when Eli announces that much younger wife No. 3 is expecting and that he's going to be a father again at age 60. "Now I won't be the baby anymore," she whines.
Justine would be annoying except that she's played with warmth and wit by the luminous Jewish-French actress Mélanie Laurent ("Inglourious Basterds"). Though the movie around her can't quite settle on a tone -- it mostly wants to be a quirky farce that doesn't let realism get in the way of a laugh but at other times aspires to be poignantly true to life -- Laurent makes Justine a character whose fate viewers (especially young women) can get invested.
Director Jennifer Devoldère's film shows at 1:50 p.m. Feb. 17 at United Artists North Point Market 8, also at 11 a.m. Feb. 29 at United Artists Tara Cinemas 4.
Other noteworthy Atlanta Jewish Film Festival entries on tap this weekend, with tickets still on sale at press time (AJFF screenings often sell out in advance; check availability at www.ajff.org.):
- "My Lovely Sister," an Israeli melodrama with touches of magical realism, about reconciliation among a family of Jewish immigrants from Morocco. 11:30 a.m. Feb. 17, United Artists North Point Market 8.
- "Sonny Boy," a sweeping World War II interracial love story from the Netherlands, the Dutch entry for best foreign language film Oscar. 11:50 a.m. Feb. 17, Lefont Sandy Springs.
- "Kaddish for a Friend," a German drama in which a Russian-Jewish World War II veteran and Palestinian teen struggle toward reconciliation after the boy vandalizes the old man's apartment and scrawls anti-Semitic graffiti on his walls, then must apologize or be deported. 2:45 p.m. Feb. 17, Lefont Sandy Springs.
- "The Flood," an Israeli drama in which dark clouds gather over one frayed family. The Roskos' marriage seems a sham, and that's before the facility that cares for their severely autistic oldest son, whose institutionalization caused the initial fracture in his parents' relationship more than a decade ago, closes down. Tomer returns home, and the family's guilt and recriminations pour forth. 8 p.m. Feb. 18, United Artists North Point Market 8.
- "White: A Memoir in Color," an American-made documentary that essays immigration, assimilation and racial attitudes. 11:20 a.m. Feb. 19, Lefont Sandy Springs.
Event preview
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
Through Feb. 29. General admission, $10; ages 65 and up, students with valid ID and ages 12 and under, $9; weekday matinees through 4 p.m., $8. 866-214-2072, www.ajff.org.
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