Prête-Moi Ta Main

The title of I Do signals a wedding vow, but the original French title, Prête-Moi Ta Main, translates as Lend Me Your Hand, suggesting a temporary little arrangement. And so it transpires in this appealing romantic comedy devised by its leading actor, Alain Chabat.

Chabat plays Luis, a 43-year- old bachelor content with a lifestyle of one-night stands. Possessed of olfactory gifts, Luis makes a comfortable living from creating perfumes, and his nose is described as the cornerstone of his company. The only male in his family, he is pampered by his mother and his five sisters.

Life for Luis would be just about perfect if the family would only stop nagging him about getting married and going to extremes to arrange dates (one sister even poses as him in an online chatroom). He hatches a plot whereby he will pay a woman to pretend to be his fiancée and she will drop him abruptly on their wedding day. Luis will claim to be so distressed that the family will never broach the subject of marriage again.

His partner in this plan is Emmanuelle (Charlotte Gainsbourg), the sister of his best friend, and she has reasons of her own to accept. Newly arrived in Paris, she is looking for work and applying to adopt a Brazilian orphan. Agreeing to Luis's proposal provides her with a convenient temporary job for which she exacts a high price.

One suspects that this plan will yield complications neither Luis nor Emmanuelle imagined, not least when they have to prove convincing as lovers.

Director Eric Lartigau moves this comedy of multiple deceptions along at a breezy pace. Chabat and Gainsbourg add sparks to the edgy relationship between their characters. And the remarkable Bernadette Lafont - who made her debut in François Truffaut's Les Mistons 50 years ago and has featured in more than 150 films - is a delight as Luis's imperious mother.

All three actors were nominated for their performances in I Do at this year's Césars awards in Paris. A box-office hit in France, the movie is sure to spawn a US remake.