At first sight, Delicacy seems to be a standard French romantic comedy. Nathalie (Audrey Tautou) and François (Pio Marmaï) are a beautiful couple blissfully in love in a picture-perfect Paris and with a fairy-tale life ahead of them. However, when their marriage abruptly ends, Nathalie sinks into depression, spending the next years focussing solely on her work, and the film becomes much more interesting. She is roused from her torpor when an inexplicable whim causes her to kiss subordinate Markus (François Damiens), a hulking Swede who is, in physical terms, in a very different league to gamine, elegant Nathalie. “It’s as if Liechtenstein went out for coffee with the USA,” he notes. Yet, to the incredulity of friends and colleagues, their oddball romance endures. 

While it’s a pleasure to be reminded that there is much more to Tautou than a pretty face, the film belongs to Damiens, who can’t believe his luck and doesn’t seem to realise that he deserves it. (Notes by Kevin Coyne.)