Plenty of films have addressed WWII and the Holocaust, but not so many have delved into the years immediately following the war, as Europeans—Jewish and otherwise—returned home and tried to resume their lives. Almost Peaceful, the latest from veteran French director Michel Deville, adapts a Robert Bober novel about a Parisian tailor shop in 1946, and the predominately Jewish staff who tentatively rebuild their business and personal relationships. Proprietor Simon Abkarian takes on more employees than he can afford (including gentile seamstress Julie Gayet, whom he's sweet on), while his wife Zabou Breitman putters about, trying to provide a safe, happy environment for her children and coworkers (including Holocaust widower Denis Podalydès, whom she tries to seduce).
It's an original story, but novelty alone doesn't carry Almost Peaceful too far. Deville stages the film like a play, with lots of long, set-bound scenes broken up by still photographs backed by doleful music, just like an entr'acte. Deville keeps the tone oddly light, too. The characters don't really act haunted; they just talk about the war constantly, working it into even the most innocuous conversations. At the film's groaning point, Abkarian complains about the aroma of soap offered by a peddler, who shoots back, "Was it better when soap smelled of people?" Too many of these characters behave like they just stepped out of a Noel Coward production, including cheerful whore Clotilde Courau, who makes wry, la-di-da jokes about the art of love.
Almost Peaceful's tameness does have its virtues. Gayet tells a children's story that Deville illustrates with charm and purpose; when Breitman's kids test their strength by holding their hands over a candle, her fierce admonition "I forbid you to suffer!" derives added weight from Deville's emphasis on the characters' fragile innocence. In the best sequence, Stanislas Merhar remembers his first glimpse of female pubic hair, in an anecdote that's funny, erotic, and wistful. The film could use more of those kinds of moments, which work well with Deville's staid framing, creating the feeling of a faded photograph.