Eliane Weiss (almond-eyed, mischievous-under-a-smooth-surface Emmanuelle Devos) is an elementary schoolteacher in Paris who is fiercely attentive to the needs of everyone in her life, from her old-fashioned husband, to her daughter, to her neurotic widowed mother, to her pupils. Attentive to everyone, that is, except herself. So her friends and family are puzzled and their tongues sent a-wagging as they notice their obliging Eliane suddenly taking her writing practice seriously and becoming, mon dieu!, independent. She takes up smoking, buys a laptop, and spends a few too many late nights with a handsome young publisher. What is happening to Eliane?

Idit Cebula’s charming comedic drama tracks Eliane’s gradual awakening to her own voice as a writer (her illustrated journals as well as her own personal charm catch the eye of the publisher), set against the conventional stresses of her daily life. Her husband, a kitchen-equipment salesman (the wonderfully expressive Gérard Darmon), is tolerant of her interests at first but soon comes to resent Eliane’s “other” life, while her needy, funny, Yiddish-speaking mother is clueless about her daughter’s artistic ambitions despite weekly encounters at raucous family Shabbat dinners. Only in poignant graveside conversations with her late father does Eliane find a soul mate and a compass as she navigates the choppy waters of self-fulfillment. Women’s lib should be old news in Eliane’s world, but it is touching to watch Devos’s character bloom, awkwardly, to the befuddlement of those around her (a fine cast including the director herself, in a cameo as Eliane’s writer-mentor). Trés charmant!

—Marie-Jo Mont-Reynaud

Palo Alto Opening Night is co-sponsored by The Albert L. Schultz Jewish Community Center

Co-presented by Jewish Singles Over Forty (JSOF) and Alliance Française de San Francisco