Friday Foreign Films: Avenue Montaigne

Welcome to a new weekly feature here at Movies With Abe. In the absence of new film reviews for a given week, I’d like to take the opportunity to spotlight a foreign from the past decade or so that might have gone unnoticed or unremembered by most. Theatres in New York City show foreign films almost as often as they show American films, and, as a result, I’d had the chance to see a number of excellent international movies in my six years here. Please add your thoughts on the film and suggestions for future inclusions in the comments section below!

Avenue Montaigne
Directed by Danièle Thompson
Released February 16, 2007

I saw this film at the Angelika Film Center just weeks before I first started Movies With Abe, and wrote in my second-ever post that the film was “a fabulously entertaining story filled with great characters and a simultaneously amusing and dramatic storyline.” Released as “Fauteils d’orchestre,” or “Orchestra Seats,” in France, England, and Australia, this movie features a whimsical ensemble with tales of music, marriage, cinema, work, and love all along one street in Paris. At its heart is the lovely Cécile De France, who will be most recognizable to American audiences for her role in Clint Eastwood’s “Hereafter.” Valérie Lemercier, Albert Dupontel, and American Sydney Pollack also stand out in a superb cast. This is a purely delightful film with a decent amount of depth, and it’s a shame that it didn’t make it into the final five after being included in the nine-wide shortlist for Best Foreign Film for the 2006 Oscars (“The Lives of Others” ultimately took home the prize).