The Château

If anyone steals the movie, though, it's Sylvie Testud, who never lets on whether the sexy French country maid she's playing is mournfully obtuse or embodies the wisdom of the ages.

A culture-clash comedy that, in addition to being very funny, captures some of the discomfort and embarrassment of being a bumbling American in Europe.

With the supremely gifted Rudd as his point man, Peretz is often ruthless in depicting Americans abroad as deluded cretins; by film’s end, however, he finds their optimism useful for re-firing the defeated hearts of his characters, even the hope-leery French ones.

Rudd delivers the best bad Franglais since Inspector Clouseau.

Barely substantial enough for a feature but just light and tasty enough to satisfy.

An occasionally funny, but overall limp, fish-out-of-water story.

Director Jesse Peretz, onetime bassist for The Lemonheads, cut his teeth on music videos and appears to have embraced the austere aesthetics of Dogme 95 filmmakers without comprehending that an interesting story and well-developed characters are supposed to be part of the package.