AVENUE MONTAIGNE

NARRATIVE, France, 2006, 106 minutes; in French with English subtitles

Director: Danièle Thompson
Producer: Christine Gozlan

Set in Paris at its most sparkling, this witty romantic comedy by Danièle Thompson, director of LA BÛCHE (High Falls Film Festival, 2001), is so suffused with joie de vivre it will have you floating out of the theater. In classic fairy tale fashion, a young woman (buoyant French star Cecile de France) arrives from the provinces and finds a job at a café adjacent to a celebrated theater, concert hall and art auction house. There she observes the entanglements of some brilliant Parisians: a popular TV actress (the irresistible Valerie Le Mercier) whose hilarious modernization of a Feydeau farce horrifies her director; a pianist (Albert Dupontel) who wants to abandon stuffy concertizing for the public square; and a widowed art collector (veteran Claude Brasseur) at loggerheads with his college professor son (Christopher Thompson, the director’s son and the film’s co-writer) who’s handsome enough to be Prince Charming. (Amy Taubin)

Danièle Thompson was born in Monaco to the prolific filmmaker Gérard Oury, and received her first screenwriting credits on his 1966 film LA GRANDE VADROUILLE. Along with Marcel Jullian, she wrote scripts for nine more of her father's movies throughout the next few decades. Thompson made her directorial debut with the Cesar-nominated LA BÛCHE, followed by the romantic comedy DÉCALAGE HORAIRE starring Juliette Binoche and Jean Reno.