IMDB's one-sentence description of Pascale Ferran's new film is a nearly-apt one: "an American arrives in Paris, checks into a hotel, turns off his cell phone and starts his life anew. "French filmmaker Ferran, known for her "Lady Chatterley" and "Petits arrangements entre les morts" (2010) for which she won the Caméra D'Or in Cannes, took "Birdpeople" to Cannes again this year but earned some mixed reviews there.

How alienated does our work/family/play/social-media environment make us? What if we took the time to measure this alienation, what if we looked, really looked at what’s around us, what if we grew wings and flew high above it all, taking stock, seeing our lives from a distance with an uncritical but lucid eye?

Such is the premise of Pascale Ferran’s lovely and thoughtful