CLARA ET MOI

Antoine (Julien Boisselier) is a 33-year-old single actor in Paris who seems the picture of modern bliss: He's intelligent and attractive with a burgeoning career, a solid group of friends and a successful family. All he needs is love. Cue Clara (Julie Gayet), an adorable, free-spirited literature student who just happens to be seated across from him on the train one day. An inevitable love affair follows, as the new couple partakes in copious rounds of blissful lovemaking. These early scenes float by with a frothy lightness, marked by an oddly compelling musical sequence in which the couple bursts into song during a date on the banks of the Seine. Alas, all is not well. An unforeseen, mid-film shift in tone, while certainly possible, seems more a heavy-handed narrative bomb than an organic evolution of the story. Clara et Moi (Clara and I) becomes more about Antoine's dad issues and self-centered immaturity, a shift writer/director Arnaud Viard has trouble keeping afloat. But this modest film has its pleasures: Boisselier and Gayet's scenes together are rife with authentic chemistry. (Jason Gargano) Grade: C+