MOVIE REVIEW : A Thoughtful Search for Love in the ‘90s : Diane Kurys’ ‘Love After Love’ evokes an acute sense of contemporary urban life and romance with a thirtysomething twist.

As Diane Kurys’ wise and graceful “Love After Love” opens,Lola (Isabelle Huppert), a popular Parisian novelist, is celebrating her 35th birthday at a festive gathering in the spacious high-rise apartment she shares with her longtime lover, David (Bernard Giraudeau), an equally successful architect. Lola would appear to have everything, but by the time she celebrates her next birthday, her entire life has changed.

Lola and David have been together since she was 15, and their determinedly open relationship has survived David’s fathering two children with another woman. An autobiographical novelist, Lola is experiencing writer’s block, apparently for the first time. It is not lost on her that her own new lover, a rock musician (Hippolyte Girardot), is also the father of two children who make legitimate claims upon his time and attentions. Lola is beginning to be no longer content playing second fiddle in the lives of the men with whom she is involved.

Through Lola’s quietly intensifying search for renewal, Kurys evokes an acute sense of contemporary urban life as it is lived in most major cities of the world. Lola and David may be more sophisticated in regard to the vicissitudes of amour than most couples, yet Kurys suggests that traditional French worldliness in affairs of the heart may be wearing a tad thin in the competitive, economically depressed ‘90s.

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Kurys puts major importance on the relationship between David and his younger half-brother Romain (Yvan Attal). Handsome and debonair in his 40s, David reflexively responds to the overtures of gorgeous women, including his ambitious but naive new secretary (Judith Reval) and regards such encounters as merely casual sex. A workaholic who accepts all the commissions that come his way, David is an irascible hard-driving employer. He is everything that Romain does not want to be; Romain wants to strike out on his own and also to establish a stable marriage.

Although central to the story, Lola is also a point of departure for Kurys in exploring with wry humor and compassion the longings and frustrations of all the key people close to the novelist. Kurys gets reflective portrayals from her first-rate cast, and “Love After Love” has the easy flow and intimacy typical of Kurys, who has always seemed the most natural and spontaneous of filmmakers. Indeed, this lovely and thoughtful film proceeds with so much effortlessness that you may be in danger of overlooking its considerable substance.

* No MPAA rating. Times guidelines: Complex adult situations, some nudity.

‘Love After Love’ (‘Apres L’Amour’)

Isabelle Huppert: Lola

Bernard Giraudeau: David

Hippolyte Girardot: Tom

Lio: Marianne

Yvan Attal: Romain

Judith Reval: Rachel

A Rainbow release of an Alexandre Films/TFI Films Production/Prodeve co-production, with the participation of the Soficas Sofiarp & Investimage 3 and of Canal +. Director Diane Kurys. Executive producer Robert Benmussa. Screenplay by Kurys, Antoine Lacomblez. Cinematographer Fabio Conversi. Editor Herve Schneid. Costumes Mic Cheminal. Music Yves Simon. Set designer Tony Egry. Running time: 1 hour, 44 minutes.

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