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Grade: C+

Verdict: Starts great but loses steam.

Details: Starring Daniel Auteuil and Vanessa Paradis. Directed by Patrice Leconte. Rated R for sexual themes. Subtitles. 1 hour, 31 minutes.

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Review: Patrice Leconte has made two of my favorite films - "Monsieur Hire" and "The Hairdresser's Husband" - so I was hardly surprised when his new picture, "Girl on the Bridge," began on such an enticingly dolorous and intriguing note.

A spectacularly gorgeous gamin (Vanessa Paradis) - we're talking in the same league as Jean Seberg in "Breathless" - is making a confession to an off-screen presence (a therapist, we assume). We soon learn she's as stunningly depressed as she is stunningly beautiful. Barely in her 20s, she already sees her life as "a waiting room in which all sorts of people rush by with places to go, people to meet."

Her point is, she has no people to meet, no places to go. No wonder the next time we see her she's perched on a bridge, about to plunge into the Seine. Just in time a soulful-looking middle-aged man (Daniel Auteuil) happens by and says, "You look like a girl who's about to make a mistake."

They are, it turns out, a match made in movie heaven. She's suicidal. He's a professional knife thrower, always in search of a new target. They become a team, and suddenly their luck turns. Everything that happens is good. Her faith in him restores both his skill and his faith in himself. His faith in her . . . well, let's just say that soon she's flashing her smashing smile and back to sleeping around (though not with him, despite the undeniable erotic charge in their relationship).

Filmed in a luminous black and white, "Girl on the Bridge" initially creates an aura of romantic intensity as well as a humorous look at the fringe life of a specialty act (knife throwers, we learn, never follow silent acts). But after about an hour, the movie loses its way.

Part of the problem is the embarassing age difference between the two leads, which, of course, is a pointless complaint these days. More troubling is the way their relationship never grows. At first we're engaged by these characters, but then we want something to grab us emotionally, to make us want them to stay together at all costs. And that simply doesn't happen. It's as if Auteuil - a tremendously skilled actor - has taken a seat in his co-star's waiting room and she never notices.

The movie wants to say things about luck and chance and the freakish fairy tale aspect of true love. But mostly it just says that if you ever feel like jumping off a bridge, you're more likely to be stopped if you look like Paradis than if you look like Janet Reno.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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