Nicole Garcia's old-fashioned love-story-plus-twist, FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON, on DVD

Some of us will watch Marion Cotillard in just about anything, but don't worry: You won't have to lower  your standards much to find one of her latest endeavors, FROM THE LAND OF THE MOON, worth your time.

This old-fashioned-with-a-twist love story, set a half-century back, is well-acted, -written and -directed, even if it does ask you to accept one whopper of an imagining by it's protagonist. But then, l'amour fou can do that, don't you think?

As directed and co-written by French actor and filmmaker Nicole Garcia (shown at left), the movie is beautiful to view and rather fun to consider, both as it is moving along and post-viewing, too.

Adapted from the novel by Milena Agus, the film takes place in France, Switzerland and Spain and stars Ms Cotillard, Louis Garrel and Alex Brendemühl. Visually and talent-wise, what's not to like?

Each actor acquits her/himself well, and the cinematography (by Christophe Beaucrane) is generally entrancing and always varied, as we travel from the French farming countryside for a rest-cure in Switzerland and eventually to sunny, coastal Spain.

Ms Cotillard (above) plays a physically and emotionally problemed character named Gabrielle, forced by her mother into marriage to a man (Brendemühl, below, right) for whom she cares nothing. But when M.Garrel (at left, two photos below) comes into her life, ah -- things change!

How all this pans out, beginning near the end then flashing back to the start of things, works well, and Ms Garcia proves adept at holding us firm through some very quirky situations. (The oddest of these flirts with mental illness in a manner that displeased my spouse but which I was to view as unlikely but acceptable, given that, hey, this is a movie, after all.)

The film's great theme is actually love -- in two of its many forms: one, a short view that's immediate and insistent, the other a long one, strong and sacrificing. The result is strange, beautiful, thought-provoking and, yes, sentimental, but awfully kind and caring.

From IFC Films, in French with English subtitles and running two hours, From the Land of the Moon (the original French titles is Mal de pierres) arrives on DVD this coming Tuesday, November 21 -- for purchase or rental.

A love story, finally, and a believable one, too, centers Nicole Garcia's drama, GOING AWAY

The routinely titled GOING AWAY (in its original French, it was the much better Un beau dimanche, or "A Beautiful Sunday") is so much more interesting and specific than that silly moniker lets on that you might want to take a chance on this strongly character-driven drama about fitting in and opting out. As co-written (with Jacques Fieschi) and directed with economy and the kind of realistic style at which actress/ writer/director Nicole Garcia excels (this is her tenth film, among then the very good Place Vendôme and The Adversary), Going Away turns out to be an easy watch: burgeoning and scattering small surprises as it moves along.

Ms Garcia (shown at right) has cast her film quite well, with the two leads played by an actress I like better each time I see her, Louise Bourgoin, and an actor, Pierre Rochefort, whom I've seen before but never in a leading role until now. Both play characters who are afraid to commit, and their behavior, while understandable if annoying, is also quite enjoyable to watch. Garcia and her co-writer give the pair plenty to do and say and feel, and the duo comes through in fine fashion, with the beautiful Ms Bourgoin (below/above) adding another good role to her versatile resume.

For his part M. Rochefort (above) proves a fine co-star for this actress; he's attractive, manly (if diffident and retiring), and something of surprise in the sudden-fisticuffs department. Also along for the ride is the Bourgoin character's little son, Mathias (played well by newcomer Mathias Brezot, below), who also proves to be the set-up for the movie's combination character-study/road-trip plot.

In a relatively large and somewhat starry supporting cast (members of the Comédie-Française make appearances, as is often the case in French films), most prominent and welcome is the opportunity to see Dominique Sanda (below) once again, looking older, yes, but still sporting those special qualities of class and classic beauty we remember so well from The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and The Conformist.

All about parenting, family and responsibility (in ways that movies don't generally demonstrate), Going Away is, finally, a love story that arrives slowly (which is all the better) but seems that much more believable for taking its own sweet time.

With locations that range from a small provincial town to the seaside (above) to a verdant mountain range and a quite impressive French estate, the movie (which, visually, is a vacation in itself) -- from Cohen Media Group and running just 95 minutes -- arrives on DVD, on Amazon Instant Video and on VOD this Tuesday, June 21, for purchase or rental.