The Taste of Others (Le Gout Des Autres)

By PETER CALDER

(Herald rating: * * * * )

A hit in its native France (where it won four Cesars, the French Oscar equivalents, including best picture and best screenplay) and a nominee for best foreign film at the last Academy Awards, this sly, witty and often hilarious comedy of manners is the kind of film the French do best - a tender and subtle examination of the curious workings of the human heart.

Its central character is a Rouen businessman, Castella (Bacri, who co-wrote with director Jaoui) who engages an actress, Clara (Alvaro), to teach him English. Socially, the two are worlds apart; he's a slob who drops homophobic clangers at cafe tables he's sharing with her obviously gay colleagues, while the elegant Clara fears that she's getting too old to win roles.

Castella's wife, a home-decorating obsessive (both house and marriage strikingly recall those of Timothy Spall's photographer character in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies) is less devoted to him than to her yappy, snappy dog and when she drags him off to a performance of Racine's Berenice, he groans with horror. But when his gaze alights on Clara as the tragic heroine, his heart melts. Night after night he returns as his infatuation morphs into clumsy passion.

Meanwhile, Castella's bodyguard meets up with a barmaid (Jaoui, whose performance is both spirited and tender) at a cafe alongside the theatre. He fails to recognise her though they slept together long ago but, she explains, they have "different plumbing" and so the act had "different implications".

More holds these couples - if they may ever be called that - apart than binds them together and the film is a gentle and engaging rumination on the nature of attraction and the fragile love that might follow.

As the two odd love stories unfold in parallel, the film slowly lures us into its characters' sweetly disordered emotional lives. The genially rambling script gives an excellent ensemble plenty of room to move and cultivate our affection for each of them, despite their foibles and failings.

It's the kind of movie where the action is almost entirely internal (which lends extra oomph to the moments of drama; a street mugging hits us like a slap in the face) and where the slightest of facial expressions says more than a page of dialogue.

The French cinema has a long tradition - Eric Rohmer is the veteran in the field - of letting us see more than it seems to show. This movie is a great addition to the genre.

Cast: Jean-Pierre Bacri, Anne Alvaro, Agnes Jaoui

Director: Agnes Jaoui

Running time: 112 mins

Rating: M, contains offensive language
Screening: Lido from Thursday