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Trailer for "Russian Dolls"

One of my favorite films of 2003 was L’Auberge Espagnole, which followed a year in a Barcelona apartment inhabited by more students than it was meant to hold. All were doing post-graduate work as part of a program designed to encourage cross-European cultural fertilization: The students came from France, Italy, Germany, Denmark, England, Belgium, Spain and probably a few places I’ve forgotten.

Shooting on digital video from a sketchy script that he revised to accommodate the actors, director Cédric Klapisch produced a wry and touching comedy focusing on French student Xavier (Romain Duris) and his growth over the course of the year as his world view expanded.

L’Auberge Espagnole (you may know it as The Spanish Apartment, Euro Pudding or, if you happened to see it in England, Pot Luck) was an international hit on the art house circuit. Now Xavier and many of his former roommates are back in Russian Dolls, a sequel which gives the impression that Klapisch doesn’t quite understand the strengths of the original film.

Five years after his studies in Barcelona, Xavier, now pushing 30, is back in Paris. Having given up his job in finance to pursue his true love, writing, he has been supporting himself with freelance jobs while trying to get his novel published. He ghostwrites memoirs for third-rate celebrities who have nothing to say; writes articles on snowboarding and urban tree care; and grinds out television scripts for executives who send them back with notes telling him not to be afraid of clichés.

And of course he searches for love. He maintains a good relationship with ex-girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou, apparently determined to put the Kewpie-doll memory of Amelie behind her) while soliciting advice from his lesbian friend Isabelle (Cécile de France), who is now making big bucks (sorry, guess that should be enormous euros) as a financial journalist.

The theme of loosening your dreams enough to accommodate the real world (there are several speeches to this effect) culminates in Xavier becoming caught between two lovers: Celia (Lucy Gordon), the gorgeous but shallow supermodel who is his latest ghostwriting assignment; and old friend Wendy (Kelly Reilly), whom he reencounters as a scriptwriting partner when the French network employing him merges with a British one.

If this sounds like a hackneyed story, well, that’s because it is. High on my personal list of irritating movie clichés is the guy moaning about how he can’t find his perfect match while women are throwing themselves at him left and right. Xavier and the others may typify a real problem of young people entering full adulthood, but it’s a banal one, at least as Klapisch treats it here.

Klapisch’s strength as a filmmaker has always been his willingness to explore his physical terrain and to open to possibilities presented by his actors. His first international hit was When the Cat’s Away, a charming comedy about a young woman living in the Montmarte section of Paris who never notices her surroundings until she is forced to explore while searching for her lost cat.

I think the problem here is that Klapisch has paid too much attention to those telling him that his relationship to actor Duris resembles that of Francois Truffaut and Jean-Pierre Leaud, who starred in an autobiographically based series of films beginning over two decades with The 400 Blows and ending with Love on the Run. Xavier appealed to us in L’Auberge for the way he responded to change and experience. As the primary focus he’s not interesting enough to carry us through a 128-minute film: We miss the friction brought by the shifting cast of characters in L’Auberge. Klapisch has talked of the possibility of a third film with Xavier, which would be a shame—he’s too gifted a filmmaker to waste his time trying to repeat past glories.