Kenneth Turan’s film pick of the week: ‘Mademoiselle Chambon’

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People fall in love in every country, but nowhere is the experience put on film with the consistent style, empathy and emotion the French provide. ‘Mademoiselle Chambon’ is the latest in that line of deeply moving romances, an exquisite chamber piece made with the kind of sensitivity and nuance that’s become almost a lost art.

Starring the top-flight acting team of Vincent Landon and Sandrine Kiberlain, actors who were once married to each other but are now divorced, ‘Mademoiselle Chambon’ is about the power of love to disturb as well as elevate, about the profoundly disconcerting experience of falling terribly in love when that’s the last thing you want to do.

Impeccably directed by Stephane Brize, ‘Mademoiselle Chambon’ is less concerned with the protagonists’ ultimate resolution than with bringing us into the journey, showing us how it came to be that these people fell and how they reacted. This would be a welcome film any time of the year, but to have it during the dog days of summer is something like a miracle.

— Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times film critic