When the Sea Rises

It's nice to see a love story that deals with mature people. We're not likely to get anything like it from Hollywood. So enjoy When the Sea Rises while you can.

A delightfully off-kilter love story. I don't want to oversell this winsome little movie, but if you want a bittersweet but cheerful pick-me-up on a cold winter evening, it's just the ticket.

And as you watch her (Moreau) sink into this semiautobiographical role (she was herself a touring performer in the 1980's), the character emerges as a deep, multilayered woman: kind, gentle and happily partaking of life's simple pleasures much of the time, but when necessary, as tough as her stage character through whom she relishes expressing her residual anger at life's hardships and disappointments.

Moreau gives a beautifully sensitive performance as a woman who finds herself at a literal and figurative crossroads, a performance for which she was quite justly rewarded the Cesar Award in 2005.

If the movie stops short of exploring its own baggage, the actors still make for unforgettable company.

Modest but spot-on co-helming debut by actress Yolande Moreau (the concierge in "Amelie") and Gilles Porte is beguiling in the slightly surreal vein of the best of contempo Belgian cinema but without the typical nasty streak.

It's content enough just to drink in the regional flavor, appreciate the carefree heartiness of the locals, and allows these two eccentrics to have some good times before the carriage turns into a pumpkin. The film treads lightly, but leaves little impression.