If you are a fan of French cinema, it won’t be more than 10 minutes into Shall We Kiss? before you start drawing comparisons to the work of Eric Rohmer, where people seem to talk about love more than they ever experience it. In this elegantly dry and deceptively witty comedy, two people discover the hard way that love is not a game where you can have your cake and eat it too. Judith (Virginie Ledoyen) is happily married and enjoys her job in a research laboratory. Her best friend since high school is Nicolas (Emmanuel Mouret, the film’s writer/director), a professor of mathematics. The two share all of their secrets. One day, Nicolas confides to her that since the end of his recent relationship he has found himself troubled by lust. He fears this makes him unable to look for a new amour with an objective mind, and a visit to a prostitute wasn’t the answer. Could Judith perhaps help him with this problem? (Space compels me to be brief: Nicolas is not, and his roundabout approach is a delight.) She initially demurs, but then agrees: Perhaps his approach, which boils down to “It’s only sex,” appeals to her analytical character. Despite their best efforts to best their animal natures, the two soon find themselves deeply involved but too guilt-ridden to end their other relationships, sending both of them into some complicated moral acrobatics. What makes this something more than a low-key bedroom farce is the fact that it is a tale we are overhearing. It is being told by Émilie (Julie Gayet), a Parisian businesswoman on an overnight trip to Nantes who has met and spent the evening with an attractive stranger, Gabriel (Michaël Cohen). After dinner, he has expressed a desire to kiss her, “a kiss of no consequence,” even though they are both otherwise involved. She is telling him this story to illustrate that there is no such thing as an inconsequential kiss. But is the story true? Or is there a different type of seduction going on here, hinted at in the color-coded set decoration? Shall We Kiss? (a not-entirely-literal translation of the original title, Un baiser s’il vous plait) walks a middle line between the works of Rohmer and the more straightforward comedy of a farceur like Francis Veber, and marks filmmaker Emmanuel Mouret as one to watch.

—m. faust

Watch the trailer for Shall We Kiss