Changement d’Adresse literally begins with postcards of Paris as its hero (Emmanuel Mouret), a young French horn player freshly arrived from the provinces, examines racks of postcards depicting his new hometown. Once he meets the film’s heroine, Anne (brilliantly played by Frédérique Bel, known for her “La Minute Blonde” series on French cable channel Canal+), the best French romantic comedy we’ve seen since Cédric Klapisch’s Chacun Cherche son Chat is off and running.

With his single eyebrow and heavy features, Mouret, who wrote and directed this sweet, funny film himself, isn’t everybody’s idea of a dream boy, but his diffident charm and sincerity are immediately winning as his character, David, tries to extricate himself from his blunders with circling, stuttering explanations that only dig him in deeper and listens with a dumbfounded puppy-dog stare to the surprising or incomprehensible things others say to him. In this game, he meets his perfect match in Bel, the bubbly blond roommate who is as outgoing and bungling as he is shy and bumbling. Also brilliant is crooner Dany Brillant in the role of the roguish charmer Julien.

We can see the end coming from a mile away, but it doesn’t really matter (except in terms of a slight lack of suspense) because getting there is so much fun as the characters fall in and out of love with the wrong people.

Heidi Ellison

© 2006 Paris Update