Variety

Eric Rohmer meets Woody Allen in "Change of Address," a light comedy of emotional manners that's Parisian to its fingertips. Though there's nothing exactly new here, pic is played with such charm, good humor and a quietly wacky sense of the absurd that it should slip easily into festival mailboxes and delight upscale auds in the usual theatrical salons.
Most impressively, it confirms the talent that Mouret showed in his debut feature, "Laissons Lucie faire!" (2000), but let slip in his sophomore pic, "Lucie et Fleur" (2004). This third outing, with Mouret himself playing the nebbish central character, has the same blithe wit as "Lucie" but allied to a much tighter, more precisely crafted script.

Newly arrived in Paris to find work in professional orchestras, French hornist David (Mouret) is stopped in the street by ditzy blonde Anne (Frederique Bel) and asked if he's looking to share an apartment. David, who has great difficulty saying no to anything, goes to look at the pad and Anne eventually 'fesses up that his flatmate will actually be her.

Anne, who's proud to have a nude photo of her mom on the wall, starts coming on to David from the off but goes all coy when he finally tries to jump her, claiming she has a boyfriend. (The truth is considerably more loco.) Meanwhile, David finds work privately tutoring Julia (Fanny Valette), the shy daughter of a bourgeoisie mom (Ariane Ascaride), and when he returns home tells Anne that he's in lurrrve.

As well as constantly springing surprises as Mouret juggles his small cast, script is kept on the boil by never tarrying long over any development. After separately describing to each other their unconsummated passions, David and Anne end up in the sack together but quickly apologize the next morning and promise it'll never happen again.

But she clearly likes him in her own weird way, and agrees to advise him on how to lasso the withdrawn Julia. Step one involves David inviting Julia for a weekend at the vacant seaside home of Anne's family. But a chance meeting brings into the equation smooth restaurateur Julien (Dany Brillant), who appears to light Julia's flame.

The subsequent rondo of emotional attachments, which also involves several changes of address, trips lightly along for a further 45 minutes to a hardly surprising but satisfying conclusion.

As in the films of Rohmer and Allen, the dialogue's the thing and, though it's practically wall to wall, there's no sense of ever treading water. Cast couldn't be better, and Mouret, though onscreen the whole time, always gives his fellow thesps the spotlight.

Lensing is unaffected but clean. Franck Sforza's horn-concerto score, and excerpts from classical horn showcases, make a perfect companion to all the goings-on. (Derek Elley)

Eye For Film

This must be the Parisian take on a Hollywood rom-com. It is lightweight, inconsequential, faintly amusing and, in the most roundabout way, about love and friendship (and sex).

David plays the French horn. He likes to insist 'professionally'. He is either painfully shy, or socially inept to the point where conversation becomes a stuttering blur. He thinks about girls a lot, although talking to them is like walking through prune juice in a pair of white flannels.

While searching for somewhere to live, he bumps into Anne, a tall, lissom blonde, who is either missing half her brain, or is intentionally misleading as a way of avoiding emotional involvement. They end up sharing a flat. He is as boring and slow as ever, while she flutters about like a daisy on speed, talking about the great love of her life whom she hasn't spoken to yet.

He is hired to give horn lessons to an introverted 19-year-old, called Julie, who seldom speaks and looks as if she is going to drop off at any moment. David is so desperate, he persuades himself that he loves her, despite minimal encouragement and no physical contact whatsoever. Back in the flat, David tells Anne all about Julie and Anne tells David all about Gabriel, with whom she has shared two or three words and is already planning a romantic holiday abroad. There is a further complication for David, when Julien (Dany Brillant), an international restaurateur (or so he says), gets the hots for Julie and, unlike everyone else in the movie, knows what he's doing.

The comedy feels forced and unrequited. The acting is poor, especially from writer/director Emmanuel Mouret, who succeeds in making David charmless and gauche to the point where a boot in the pants could only improve matters. Frederique Bel overplays the ditsy idiocy of Anne, who should not be allowed out in public without warning lights, and Fanny Valette underplays Julie's passivity so successfully that her sex appeal lies buried beneath acres of ennui.

When a rom-com wastes the rom and loses the com, it is stranded in limbo where only wit can save it. (Angus WOlfe Murray)