Review: ‘The Stroller Strategy’ is your basic cinematic kiddie ride

Marie (Charlotte Lebon) and Thomas (Raphaël Personnaz) are a terrifically attractive French couple until she dumps him — rightfully — after five years because they’re no closer to a better apartment, wedding ring or a baby. To get Thomas over his heartbreak, loutish best friend Paul (Jérôme Commandeur) introduces him to “The Stroller Strategy,” i.e. buy a baby seat for your car and cruise around picking up vulnerable single mothers.

But Thomas doesn’t need the prop. A real baby falls — literally — into his hands after its own vulnerable single mother falls down the stairs and has to spend five days in a medically induced coma. And Marie happens to own the best day care/baby massage/infant sign language school in Paris, a plot contrivance the locals would call très artificielle.

Thomas is a moron, and the movie around him isn’t much smarter. It’s a goofy, episodic trifle designed to induce swoons among the saccharine who coo every time they see a cute guy, or a baby, or a cute guy holding a baby while watching YouTube videos about how to change a diaper. Will director Clément Michel, who co-wrote the script with Louis-Paul Desanges, allow these hot babes and their actual babe a happy ending? What’s French for “duh”?

—Amy Nicholson

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“The Stroller Strategy”

MPAA rating: None.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes.

Playing: At the Laemmle Music Hall 3, Beverly Hills.