To use the immortal words of Feargal Sharkey: a good heart these days is hard to find. In a world of fearing and cynical people, all humans want is to find someone with a good heart that will respond to them the way they need them to. The people that enter our lives for one reason or another come from all parts of society and age, gender nor race affect this course we follow. My Afternoons With Margueritte is a film based around this part of life and it pleasantly surprises with its integrity.

As Germain Chazes (Gerard Depardieu) grew up, he was taunted and teased by his single mother as being dumb and an underachiever. He never knew his father, and bullying at school furthered the creation of a fragile man. His friends don’t really seem to be his friends as they too mock him on everything in between eating and the little work they appear to do. Germain has no direction in life before he meets Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus) by chance in a park. They get talking and he discovers there’s so much more he can achieve in his life through such simple actions. The obstacles he faces in accepting this are plentiful and add drama to this otherwise light-hearted film, where no-one understands why he’s trying to educate himself. It’s a sad circumstance to think no-one believes in you, and gaining confidence through an elderly woman is what Germain needs and gets. My Afternoons With Margueritte has a Harold and Maude feel for much of it, with the younger-man-meets-older-woman-who-teaches-him-things theme, but in a much different context. This film is very gentle in the scenes of the central relationship as a man discovers his self-worth for the first time, but refuses to gloss it over with anything too tacky. It’s simplistic in its shots to compliment the story, but the flashbacks to Germain’s childhood rightly put things in perspective as we realise that he is someone haunted by his past.

Conversations With My Gardner director Jean Becker has done well with this film in his adaptation of Marie-Sabine Roger’s book to make it effectively simple. Also acting as co-writer, nothing is overdone and its quieter scenes speak volumes. That’s not to say the French humour isn’t there; it’s left to Patrick Bouchitey, Jean-Francois Stevenin and Matthieu Dahan as Germain’s friends to step it up for comic relief as Depardieu handles Germain’s confusion. Scenes between Depardieu and Casadesus are lovely with good chemistry as the two show their screen experience.

My Afternoons With Margueritte is a film where you get exactly what you expect. It presents itself as a simple story with heart and comes across faithfully so. It’s not an entirely new idea but it reflects the need to find caring people in this world, and love of all different kinds is what the French express in their stories best. It knows that a good heart is hard to find, so why not tell a story about a man who found one?

Verdict

My Afternoons With Margueritte leaves the sugar at home but still provides a sweetly simple experience.

My Afternoons With Margueritte screens as part of the 2011 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival and is in cinemas April 7.

Follow the author Katina Vangopoulos on Twitter.