A companion piece to director Jean Becker’s Conversations With My Gardener, this gentle gem stars Gérard Depardieu as Germain, a lumbering fifty-something mocked by friends for his ignorance.

In the park he meets Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus), a bird-like old lady in her nineties with a passion for literature. Gradually she awakens parts of his brain he didn’t know he had.

Depardieu’s the best he’s been for years, while 95-year-old Casadesus is a sheer delight.

Only the French could get away with such an old-fashioned charmer.