For the first 20 minutes of David and Stéphane Foenkinos's screwball comedy, Nathalie (Audrey Tautou) and her beau enjoy a relationship as bland and bubbly as Tautou herself. They re-enact their first meeting; they get married; they enjoy three joyful years together as depicted in a montage of Polaroids of them acting kooky in exotic places. Then one day he goes out for a run, and never returns. What a relief. For the viewer, if not for Nathalie, who lapses into mourning, puts in remorseless hours at work, ignores the advances of her boss, and then one day kisses Markus (Francois Damiens, a kind of Seth Rogen with subtitles), the dorkiest guy in the office. For, unlike everyone else, Markus is funny. And nice and poetic. Can their relationship endure the sidelong glances of her friends and his battered self-esteem? The directors handle this, if not with delicacy, then with more subtlety, ambiguity, and humanity than the average Hollywood rom com.
