Starring Bouli Lanners. In French, with English subtitles. Rated PG

This unassuming gem of a movie sneaks up on you.

With its casual hyperrealism, you initially expect either a plain slice of downbeat life or a comedy of bad manners. What it eventually becomes is far richer than both.

In her first solo effort, young writer-director Claire Burger returns to the scene of other collaborative efforts, for a semi-autobiographical tale of growing up but not giving up.

Her hometown Forbach, a now-desultory mining village near the border with Germany, is where a beleaguered, bearlike civil servant named Mario (Bouli Lanners, best known for Rust and Bone) suddenly faces the task of raising his two teenage daughters alone.

His longtime wife, Armelle, is a theatrical tech person (Cécile Rémy-Boutang is also the production manager of this no-budget film) who finds Mario boring and ineffectual.

Frankly, he doesn’t have much of an argument against that, and she’s done a runner. Attempting to shake things up, he joins an improv group putting together a show where Armelle just happens to work.

Gradually, his interest in music and dance overcomes his stalking instincts, and he starts getting into it. Not that this helps with the girls, a lively study in genetic contrasts.

The elder sister, Niki (Sarah Henochsberg), is almost 18 and someone who’ll always land on her feet. Fifteenish Frida (Justine Lacroix) is a far more troubled soul, confused about her own sexuality and just generally pissed at dad for doing everything wrong.

For his part, he’s most worried that she has started smoking.

These situations are familiar enough; what’s unusual is that all the participants, including most of the other friends, colleagues, and random folks who cross their paths, really like each other and demonstrate good-humoured resourcefulness, especially in a pinch.

The movie’s offbeat pacing requires some patience, but that’s rewarded by scenes that turn out to be funnier, and more tender, than a hundred Hollywood romances.