Timothy West and Harriet Walter star as the owners of a Parisian boarding house in 1913, regularly shaken to bits by passing Metro trains. Julie Delpy is the new French maid, a widow from the country in a city where "passion hangs in the air like farts". It's a diverting tale, with a distinctive daguerreotype motif for its scene changes, but it gets bogged down in a deadly dull thwarted romance.