Coupling

A couple of quick ones:

ROBOT AND FRANK (B-minus) - This wouldn't be much without Frank Langella, who plays a lonely old man sinking into dementia but is re-energized by the companionship of his robot assistant. But Langella is fantastic, lifting this from the heap of trifles and making it worth a look.

The first 20 minutes are choppy, as if the filmmaker was in a hurry to get to the second act or perhaps the producers insisted on trimming this down under 90 minutes. Langella's Frank is an ex-con jewelry thief who warms to his futuristic companion (a honey-voiced Peter Sarsgaard) and starts to feel the ol' juices flowing when he realizes that Robot is the perfect lock-picker and safe-cracker.

That second act is cracker-jack, and if you buy into the concept, the movie starts to hum.  Langella is weighed down, though, by a weak supporting cast (a flat Susan Sarandon, a zombified Liv Tyler and a puzzled James Marsden). Jeremy Strong overplays a bad-guy role. And surprise twist at the end, feels cheap. Langella and Sarsgaard rescue the proceedings with a touching scene toward the end, and Langella brings the proceedings heart-breakingly full-circle in the final scene. Charming.

NATHALIE (2003) (B) - Another film you root for. This was remade in America as "Chloe," which I didn't see. Here, a wife (Fanny Ardant) tires of her husband (Gerard Depardieu) cheating and hires a stripper (Emmanuelle Beart) to seduce him -- and to report back on their assignations.

This could have been a cheesy Cinemax sizzler. But Ardant's Catherine and Beart's Nathalie (nee Marlene) develop a believable bond over Nathalie's steamy reports. Depardieu, just before he ballooned into middle age, is a plausible, low-key cad.

This one has its own twist at the end, and it's worth the price of admission. It makes me suspect that this is one of those examples of thinking up a killer ending and building a whole story around it. It works. The storytelling is compact and compelling. The actors are at the top of their games. And director Anne Fontaine ("Coco Before Chanel") delivers.