An actor whose presence brings a rare warmth to anything he does, Jim Broadbent is every bit as affable when you get him on the phone. In this case, the veteran British thesp—whose lengthy CV ranges from star-making turns for Mike Leigh (Life Is Sweet, Topsy Turvy) to mega-billion dollar Hollywood blowouts (Cloud Atlas)—is quietly delighted that his latest homegrown effort is playing anywhere at all.

“It’s surprising that any non-mainstream film could get a release, isn’t it, these days?” he asks, calling the Straight from London. Yes it is, but Le Week-End is with us nonetheless, and rightly so. Opening Friday (March 21), this small-scale charmer is catnip to anyone who favours first division talent and a grown-up storyline over, say, Tyler Perry or huge robots battling extra-dimensional dinosaurs.

Broadbent plays Nick in the Roger Michell-directed film, a recently fired college prof trying to rekindle his 30-year marriage with a trip to the City of Light. But sometimes-prickly, sometimes-giddy wife Meg—embodied to devastating perfection by Lindsay Duncan—isn’t entirely on board with the plan.

Broadbent brings a whimsical sort of sadness to the role, in a movie that becomes ever more serious as we’re reminded, not only about the psychic wear-and-tear of marriage, but also the counter revolutionary fate of Nick’s once radical generation. It’s a theme that vibrates through the film's seemingly casual references to Godard (including a wonderful tribute to Bande à part).

“I keep forgetting now that it’s not a black and white film. Roger wanted it to be black and white,” remarks Broadbent. “All that was terribly familiar to me, the optimism of the ‘60s and early ‘70s, when the world was our oyster and we thought we were going to change things. And I think that’s why Nick got caught out, really. I think he chose to be a lecturer and a teacher for the very best possible reasons and then realized that the world wasn’t going along with him, you know? He found himself in a rather uncomfortable backwater and not part of the great new march forward of the people.”

“The establishment has a firmer grip on things than we ever realized, I think,” he adds, with a sigh.

As Nick’s former student and friend, now basking in success (and with a new and younger wife), Jeff Goldblum eventually turns up to bring another shade of misery to Nick’s long, dark week-end of the soul. For us, on the other hand, it’s pure joy.

“That was a thrill!” states Broadbent, with a laugh. “We shot it more or less chronologically, so he turned up for the last week in Paris with this burst of transatlantic energy. It’s exactly what we needed. It all came together very appropriately, with his exuberance, and Lindsay with her quiet, and certainty—I was caught between these two equally powerful forces. It made it a good dramatic energy, I think. It was great.”

From his ebullient response and otherwise cheeful demeanor, I suppose we can infer that the 64-year-old actor—all losses aside—doesn’t "shit himself with anxiety every moment of the day," as his dolorous character so memorably puts it at one point? Isn’t that all any of us have to look forward to?

“No,” answers Broadbent, chuckling softly. “I don’t, so I don’t see why you should either.”