GOOD wine needs no bush, as the medieval saying went. A good story can stand a lot of telling. It matters not that director Laurent Tirard’s adaptation is the second filming of of Marcos Carnevale’s original story “Corazon de Leon” since 2013.

Virginie Efira plays Diane, three years separated from Bruno (Cedric Kahn), her professional partner in a prosperous-enough legal practice in a French coastal city. She answers a phone call in the office from Alexandre (Jean Dujardin), who has found her mobile in a restaurant. They’ve not met. He sounds interesting, He arranges to return the mobile. Only one surprise. Alexandre is four feet five inches tall (the film uses Imperial measurement) Apart from that distinctive attribute, he’s indeed a good looking fellow who, we learn, is a skydiving enthusiast.

This charming, slightly offbeat romantic comedy accompanies Diane and Alexandre through a complex pattern of relationships, issues and events involving her parents, his son Benji (Cèsar Domboy), her and Bruno’s shared office assistant Coralie (Stephanie Papanian), business and cultural associates. It quickly becomes apparent that they are going to fall in love. But that route never did run smooth, which provides Carnevale and Tirard with numerous opportunities to examine the highs and lows of dealing with that absolutely unresolvable issue – his height.

Some may consider the story to verge on trite, but Tirard’s version is intelligent, sharp and credible comedy delectably performed.