Q:Build a movie plot around this: Who works with Ismael? Alice
A:
Ismael (Louis Garrel, the Gallic version of the adorable young Hugh Grant), lives with Julie (Ludivine Sagnier). Alice (Clotilde Hesme), who works with Ismael, shares their bed and Alice's affections. On a night of tragedy, Jeanne, unawares, hooks up with Gwendal (Yannick Renier), whose teen-aged brother Erwann (Gregoire Leprince-Ringuet) is the only one who can bring a shattered Ismael back to life, in the most romantic man-on-man love scene since Rupert Grave's Alec Scudder climbed through Maurice's bedroom window 20 years ago. With rain-slicked streets, coffee and cigarettes, references to a dozen French classics, a haunting score and the best balcony scene since "Romeo and Juliet," this low-budget charmer, which has become a cult favorite in France with the under-25 set, is an "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" for the 21st Century.