Chow Time

By RICHARD SCHICKEL

A SIMPLE STORY Directed by Claude Sautet Screenplay by Claude Sautet and Jean-Loup Dabadie

This is another of those French movies whose true subject--no matter what the script says--is eating and drinking. About the only business the actors do while exchanging dialogue is prepare food or consume it. At least everything looks delicious. Yet maybe the reason is that one's mind tends to wander from more important matters, which are related in a style that is both distant and flat.

The film begins with a woman (Romy Schneider) obtaining an abortion, mostly because her lover is a boring failure. It ends with her carrying to term a child she has conceived with her former husband, who is not boring and is successful. Just why she left him in the first place, or took up with the replacement she now finds odious, is left unclear. Instead, Director Sautet cuts away to subplots involving the heroine's wide circle of female friends. The point seems to be that men are not much good and that a woman is likely to find greater happiness, or anyway serenity, with her own kind. Still, everyone, male and female, is presented in such an agreeable way that even this conclusion is vague. For some reason Story has been nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film. This probably says less about the movie than it does about the possibilities of getting a decent French meal around Los Angeles. --Richard Schickel

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.