Avenue Montaigne

Directed and co-written by Daniele Thompson (“La Bûche,” “Jet Lag”), and selected as France’s Official Entry for this year’s Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar, “Avenue Montaigne” centers around Jessica (Cecile de France) a beautiful young woman from the provinces who comes to Paris and lands a job waiting tables at a chic bistro on fabled Avenue Montaigne, the city’s nexus for art, music, theater and fashion. Jessica’s customers include a popular TV actress (Valérie Lemercier) who is courting a major Hollywood director (Sydney Pollack) for her first serious film role; a wealthy art collector (Claude Brasseur) who is about to liquidate a lifetime’s worth of treasures at auction; and an illustrious classical pianist (Albert Dupontel) who is at odds with his manager/wife (Laura Morante) as to where his career is headed. Precisely because Jessica doesn’t know how celebrated these people are, her guileles and completely unintimidated engagement in their lives has a transforming effect on them – and ultimately her – “Avenue Montaigne.”