Happenstance

One day in Paris. Irène, a young woman working in a café, overhears a stranger on the metro that morning talking about star signs. Across the same day dozens of small things happen in the city: a dropped bean, a broken glass, a missed bus, a flicked cigarette end, a couple arguing. None of it is connected, and each one sets off the next. At the end of the chain is Irène and Younes standing in the same place. Laurent Firode directs; ninety minutes. Audrey Tautou plays Irène; the film was made a year before Amélie and is among her first leading roles. The title comes from the butterfly effect: the beat of a butterfly's wing.