‘A New Life’ Looks at the Risks of Love

“A New Life,” one of the best of the Olivier Assayas films screened at the American Cinematheque’s recent retrospective, is even more rewarding on a second viewing. You come away impressed by how well he knows his people in all their complexities.

The richness in this film can be easy to miss because Assayas works firmly in the classic no-frills tradition of the French cinema. His eternal theme--the mainstay of French movies--is emotional risk, and he fills the screen with people who leave themselves vulnerable in the relentless pursuit of l’amour.

Sophie Aubry’s lovely, sober Tina has that certainty only possible at 20. She operates a forklift at the warehouse of a Home Depot-like store, proud that’s she doing a man’s work (even if the pay’s no better).

Her sweet-natured boyfriend Fred (Philippe Torreton, very likable) has had to scramble for odd jobs, but it looks like he might land one as a truck delivery man. Tina is determined that she and Fred soon have a place of their own and get married.

Tina has good reason to pursue this working-class dream. Her fading mother (Nelly Borgeaud), a manic-depressive, has raised three children out of wedlock. The father of the younger two has left her and tends to be a deadbeat dad.

As for Tina’s father, he’s a man of vast wealth who through an intermediary has lent her mother some sporadic support--on the grounds that she and Tina never attempt to contact him. In her pride Tina declares she has no interest in him and doesn’t bother to hide her loss of respect for the mother she loves more than she realizes.

Whoosh!--and Tina’s life falls apart, tempting her to seek out her father. Managing to gain entrance to his lavish high-rise apartment--he is out of town--she’s stepped into a world of tantalizing possibilities and before she knows what’s happening begins to repeat her mother’s life. But Tina has a strong character and an inquisitive nature; she’s not afraid to stay true to her nature.

Her first and most crucial encounter is with that intermediary of her father’s, the living definition of savoir-faire. Bernard Giraudeau has been playing accomplished seducers for 20 years, and in his trim, debonair 40s he knows exactly how to portray one who wins women with casual aplomb.

Now a highly successful lawyer (but still the man who does Tina’s father’s dirty work) he’s not lacking in self-awareness and perhaps self-loathing. There’s an oiliness to him that’s repellent, but his attraction for women is understandable.

Giraudeau is formidable as this Casanova, especially when we begin to comprehend that there is the possibility that he’s falling in love with Tina. Yet this lawyer is just the beginning of Tina’s education sentimentale.

Young French actresses tend to be remarkably poised, and this is the case with both Aubry and Judith Godreche, who plays her initially wary, finally welcoming, half-sister. Christine Boisson is elegant and gallant as the beautiful but neglected wife of the lawyer.

For all its concern with grand passion, “A New Life” is no less concerned with moral choices and the value of taking chances, leaving us with the impression that in all aspects of life security is an illusion.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: adult themes and situations concerning the constant pursuit of love and sex.

‘A New Life’

(Une Nouvelle Vie)

Sophie Aubry: Tina

Bernard Giraudeau: Constantin

Judith Godreche: Lise

Christine Boisson: Laurence

A Cowboy International release of a Franco-Italo-Swiss co-production: Arena Films-Le Sept Cinema-Lumiere/Vega Film/Alia Film. Writer-director Olivier Assayas. Producer Bruno Pesery. Cinematographer Denis Lenoir. Editor Luc Barnier. Costumes Francoise Clavel. Art director Francois-Renaud Labarthe. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 2 hours, 2 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Grande 4-Plex through Thursday, 345 S. Figueroa St., downtown Los Angeles, (213) 617-0268.