Paper Souls

A wisp of Woody Allen pervades director Vincent Lannoo's supernatural romantic comedy, which takes place over the Christmas period, but touches in passing on everything from the Holocaust to post-colonialism. Plagued by writer's block since his wife's death five years earlier, novelist Paul (Stéphane Guillon) now makes a living composing funeral orations. However, he has misgivings when Parisian bookshop owner Emma (Julie Gayet) asks him to commemorate her long-dead photojournalist husband Nathan on her son's eighth birthday. The growing bond between Paul and the boy is deftly achieved and convinces much more than the love story. But Lannoo and screenwriter François Uzan struggle to integrate the bemused Nathan's ghostly reappearance, as well as a subplot about a search by Paul's neighbour (Pierre Richard) for a memento of the brother he lost during the war. Véronique Sacrez's sets are atmospherically cluttered and the performances are admirably restrained. But, for all its melancholy charm, this never delves deeply enough into issues like loss, loneliness, memory and healing before tying up the loose ends a tad too neatly.