Film

It’s hard to figure out whether Moscow, Belgium falls in the genre of quirky Northern European comedy (sad sack finds love with schlump to the accompaniment of a cute accordion score) or grim Northern European drama (lonely people cling to each other despite their deep character flaws). You may, as we did, find yourself laughing at what seems like a droll bit of observation and then, a scene later, feeling embarrassed by your laughter when things turn serious. It’s not that Van Rompaey doesn’t know how to manage tone; it’s that he refuses to fit his film into any of our ready-made genre slots.

Matty (Sarafian), a worn-out middle-aged woman raising three kids while her husband “takes a break from the marriage,” has a fender bender involving trucker Johnny (Delnaet) in a supermarket parking lot. She chews him out but good, to which he responds with an oddly flirtatious tone. It could be played as a typical movie meet-cute, but Sarafian’s raw rage makes it a little scary. Still, Johnny perseveres, dropping by her apartment and offering to fix the damage to her car. He woos her aggressively and starts avowing his love way, way too soon, but Matty can’t resist the attention from a man at least ten years her junior. Their messy romance proceeds by fits and starts. It may not be an old-fashioned love story, but it’s a recognizably real one.