‘Heaven’ Reveals Depth in Search for Heights

When we first see Mathilde, the protagonist of French director Benoit Jacquot’s intriguing “Seventh Heaven,” she’s literally out of focus, a beauty in a daze.

Her face sad, her body language slack, Mathilde (Sandrine Kiberlain) wanders distractedly through a store, stopping only to casually shoplift a toy she later hides in a bag in her closet.

A lawyer by profession, Mathilde is so sunk in a serious depression that she hasn’t worked in more than a month. Her orthopedic surgeon husband Nico (Vincent Lindon, Kiberlain’s real-life mate) thinks medication is the answer, but no prescription he’s written has had much effect. Then, at an art gallery opening, Mathilde gets a glimpse of a man who turns out to make a difference.

“Seventh Heaven” is the eighth theatrical feature for Jacquot, a director who’s been working in France since 1975 but only began to gather attention in the U.S. after the recent success of the real-time drama “A Single Girl.” His 1990 “The Disenchanted” just played New York; the Isabelle Huppert-starring “The School of Flesh” was well-received in Cannes.

A bit like a more stringent Claude Sautet, Jacquot focuses on adult romantic conundrums in contemporary Paris. His films (this one co-written with Jerome Beaujour) feature intelligent characters enmeshed in difficult, often unsettling situations that always compel our attention.

The man Mathilde spies across a crowded room (a magnetic Francois Berleand) turns out to be a Svengali-type hypnotist and specialist in alternative medicine. Imperious and completely confident, he seems to know just how to deal with all the crises in her life, even the ones she’s not completely aware of.

After she has been in such a deep funk you fear she’s forgotten how to smile, Mathilde starts to wake up. Watching actress Kiberlain (last seen here as the abandoned first wife in Jacques Audiard’s “A Self-Made Hero”) flourish and gain self-confidence under this unusual treatment is one of “Seventh Heaven’s” pleasures.

As Mathilde grows in assurance, the focus of “Seventh Heaven” begins to change and the ironic twist attached to the film’s title becomes clearer. Though mystics consider that there are seven levels of heaven--the seventh equaling a kind of ultimate happiness--the more Mathilde cheers up and gets closer to that plateau, the less the people around her, especially her husband, can handle it.

Getting increasingly involving as it unfolds, “Seventh Heaven” goes beyond examining the power unconscious forces can have in our lives. It focuses as well on how tricky it is to find and maintain a balance in a marriage, on how attached we get to situations we know are making us unhappy and how deranging and disconcerting the onset of unexpected happiness can be.

“Seventh Heaven” is observant and offbeat, like a perceptive short story, and its fascination with adults trying to make their lives work in troubling circumstances is refreshingly mature and open-ended. We’re used to expecting this kind of emotionally adept, sophisticated storytelling as a given from the French, and it’s nice to see they haven’t lost the touch.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: adult subject matter, brief nudity, sexual activity.

‘Seventh Heaven’

Sandrine Kiberlain: Mathilde

Vincent Lindon: Nico

Francois Berleand: the doctor

A production of Dacia Films-Cinea and co-production of La Sept Cinema with the participation of the Centre National de la Cinematographie and Canal+, released by Zeitgeist Films. Director Benoit Jacquot. Producers Georges Benayoun, Philippe Carcassonne. Executive producer Francoise Guglielmi. Screenplay Benoit Jacquot & Jerome Beaujour. Cinematographer Romain Winding. Editor Pascale Chavance. Costumes Caroline De Vivaise. Production design Patrice Arrat. Sets Arnaud De Moleron. Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes.

* Playing at Music Hall, 9036 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 274-6869; Edwards Town Center, 3199 Park Center Drive, Costa Mesa, (714) 751-4184.