“L’Auberge Espagnole” opens to a shot of a naked man, so in case you didn’t know it was a European film before that, this will tip you off. Another hint, very little actually happens. We always want our films to be bursting with plot and “L’Auberge Espagnole” just isn’t. It’s a sleepy sort of French coming-of-age story that is still utterly charming.
On the recommendation that he study finance and learn Spanish in order to land the dull sort of job he ought to have as a responsible young bourgeois Frenchman, Xavier (Romain Duris) signs up for a one-year exchange program studying economics in Barcelona.
Leaving behind his girlfriend (Audrey Tautou of “Amelie” fame), he embarks. Once in Barcelona, Xavier is befriended by a neurologist and his slightly dim-witted, shy wife. He takes up residence in a crowded apartment with a gaggle of fellow exchange students from all over Europe and the apartment is a microcosmic European Union of twenty-somethings.
Learning far more from his cohorts than from his classes (he gets sex pointers from the Belgian lesbian), Xavier does his growing up among his roommates, becoming a more likeable and complete man in the process.
Written and directed by Cedrick Klapisch (“When the Cat’s Away”), “L’Auberge Espagnole” was shot digitally with a small hand-held camera and some of that captured-on-the-fly quality comes through in the feel of the piece.
When the film is not charming you with Xavier’s roommates, it is inviting you into a love affair with Barcelona.
If you have gone on an exchange trip to Europe, you’re going to get rather sentimental while watching this film. If you haven’t gone on exchange, you’ll probably be visiting the Office of International Studies soon, because you’re going to wish all these characters were your friends, too.
Admittedly, there is little substance to the film and the ending is more wrap-up than denouement, but the point is more experiential than anything else. If you take the film on its own terms, you won’t object to it’s airiness.
“L’Auberge Espagnole” is rated R for language and sexual content.
