Hunting and Gathering

Circumstances throw together a mixed quartet in a single household: a cleaning woman (Audrey Tatou), a stuttering young aristocrat (Laurent Stocker), an ill-tempered cook (Guillaume Canet) and the cook’s ailing grandmother (Françoise Bertin). Writer-director Claude Berri’s film (adapted from Anna Gavalda’s novel) is a warm and beguiling situation dramedy—no surprises in the story, but characters so pleasantly likeable that we relish the opportunity to get to know them. Tatou further cements her reputation as a 21st-century French answer to Audrey Hepburn, while Stocker gives the kind of performance that, with luck, makes international stars. (Not that it matters, but the English title is apropos of nothing; in French it’s Ensemble, C’est Tout—literally, Together, That’s All, which makes more sense.)