"Roman de Gare," a French film from Claude Lelouch, is (if you can imagine this) a user-friendly murder mystery. Director and co-writer Lelouch, best known for the 1966 film "A Man and a Woman," has made a rather playful event of his 49th film, which stars Fanny Ardant as Judith, a crime novelist accused of murder.

The story starts as a Paris detective (Zinedine Soualem) grills her about the disappearance of Pierre Laclos (Dominique Pinon, the odd fella in many French arty films such as "Amelie" and "The City of Lost Children"), her personal assistant -- and possible ghostwriter -- last seen alive on her yacht. The detective is convinced that Judith has offed Pierre for threatening to go public with the revelation that he, not Judith, deserves the credit for her novels.

"Roman de Gare," whose title roughly translated means "airport novel," segues into an extended flashback as we watch Pierre pick up a young woman, Huguette (Audrey Dana), at a rest stop after her boyfriend has left her high and dry. We are led to believe that Pierre may be a serial killer, since news has broken of an escaped murderer.

The movie is more entertaining than it is logical; its narrative leaps are sometimes ahead of our ability to believe them. But as the compellingly enigmatic Pierre, Pinon keeps us rapt. And Lelouch keeps us caught up in the intrigue, the mystery and the fun of the film's murderous potential, rather than feeling edge-of-the-seat discomfort and worry on behalf of the characters.

-- Desson Thomson (May 9, 2008)

Contains sexual situations and profanity. In French with subtitles.