L’Auberge espagnole

The title is French slang for a “free-for-all,” which pretty much describes what Parisian student Xavier (Romain Duris) encounters when he travels to Barcelona for his senior year and takes up residence with a cultural melting pot of student flat mates (Italian, British, German, Spanish, Belgian and Greek). Xavier learns the finer points of sex from a lesbian and has an affair with the terminally dazed wife of a doctor as he begins to replace both his relationship with the possessive girl he left behind (Amelie’s Audrey Tautou) and his economics studies with new priorities. Cédric Klapisch (When the Cat’s Away) wrote and directed this gorgeous postcard of a movie in which charm, fantasy and such cinematic embellishments as fast-forward and split screens are more prevalent than any embrace of drama or substance.