"Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Horseman on the Roof" director Rappeneau works with a broad canvas of characters to bring us a group of Parisian lovers and acquaintances who flee to Bordeaux on the eve of the Nazi invasion. Included in the group are a brittle movie star (Isabelle Adjani) and her mooning politician partner (Gerard Depardieu), her passionate boyfriend and writer (Gregori Derangere), whom she’s duped into covering up a murder she committed, and a physicist’s assistant (Virginie Ledoyen), for whom the writer develops an instant attraction.

All of them are tied together by their mutual relationships, some covert and some not, and they end up crammed into a refugee hotel with all types and levels of society, wrapped up in a plot about the A-bomb and crises of the heart as well as the political. There’s much scurrying around behind each other’s backs and some so-so intrigue involving the assistant’s involvement with "heavy water," en route to America, and its atomic destiny.

The cast is uniformly good though no one manages a breakout performance. Ageless Adjani doesn’t get much to do with her brittle movie star, but she’s a world-class movie star to be sure and that’s about all that’s necessary here beyond a continued expression of wide-eyed disbelief. Depardieu takes a backseat with a less showy role that only requires him to be smitten through the film’s duration. Ledoyen, the beautiful star of "8 Women" and "The Beach," does what she can to suppress her looks in favor of intelligence, but she’s radiant nonetheless. As the central everyman connected to everyone else, Derangere is by turns dashing and sensitive.