A sweet puff of a film, "My Afternoons With Margueritte" is as disarming as it is absurd.
A barrel-bellied Gérard Depardieu stars as Germain, something like the village idiot in a quaint French town. He lives in a trailer next to the house of his harpy mother (Claire Maurier). He socializes at the local café with friends who tend to make fun of his good-natured ignorance.
Incongruously, he also has a bus-driver girlfriend, Annette (Sophie Guillemin), who is a fresh-faced beauty far younger than he (in reality, Guillemin is 29 years younger than the 62-year-old Depardieu).
Exactly why this knockout would be hanging with the rotund village idiot is: This movie was made in France. Anything can happen in France.
The other reason Sophie is with Germain is that he's sweet, honest and actually not an idiot. This becomes clear when Germain runs into a little old lady, Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus), at the town park one day. She reads him a passage from a Camus novel and Germain drifts away on the words.
So they start meeting regularly, Margueritte reading aloud to Germain. And writer/director Jean Becker returns to Germain's early life in flashbacks - mistreated by his mother, mocked by his teachers, the boy grew into the dummy suit sewn for him.
The lumbering Germain and frail Margueritte form a platonic bond (obviously Germain has no problem with women who are nowhere near his age). And Germain's friends are shocked to hear him using big words, offering garbled analysis and changing before their eyes.
The garrulous Depardieu still carries a charm that storms right over obstacles such as logic and likelihood. And 97-year-old Casadesus (her first film was in 1934) is a vision of patience and wizened optimism.
As a result, "Margueritte" flows by happily, acknowledging tragedy and injustice while focusing instead on the wide range of romance, sprinkling optimism over age and anxiety.
'MY AFTERNOONS WITH MARGUERITTE'
Rating: Not rated.
Running time: 1 hour, 22 minutes.
Note: One of two films opening this week in the Arts & Education Council's Independent Film Series.