Grade: C

The Shakespearean allusion in the title is by far the cleverest thing about “Food of Love,” a sincere but dramatically conflicted gay coming-of-age tale about a California piano student whose idolization of a concert artist leads to a brief affair. (“The Page Turner,” the title of the David Leavitt novel on which it’s based, isn’t bad either.) So long as the narrative concentrates on Paul (Kevin Bishop), the young keyboard pupil, and Richard Kennington (Paul Rhys), the established recitalist, Ventura Pons’ little film is reasonably well modulated and modestly insightful. Unfortunately, subplots involving Paul’s mother Pamela (Juliet Stevenson)–who first misinterprets Richard’s interest as directed toward her and later goes wild at the thought of her son’s relationship with the older man–and Richard’s suspicious long-time partner Joseph (Allan Corduner) take the picture into strident melodramatic territory. Stevenson and Corduner are both excellent actors, but even they can’t keep their characters sufficiently subtle.

The action begins when Paul is tapped to serve as Richard’s page-turner for a San Francisco concert. Richard takes the boy’s excessive praise as romantic in nature, but before they can connect the exuberant Pamela whisks her son away. Shortly afterward, Pamela’s husband leaves her, and she and Paul go off on a Spanish vacation to forget. When Paul finds that Richard is in town, he approaches the older man and they become involved. As they share time with Pamela, however, she misinterprets Richard’s attention to her; meanwhile Joseph, who’s remained back in New York to nurse his ill dog, badgers Richard to return–which he does, abruptly ending the affair which Paul has begun to take very seriously.

Seguing ahead six months, we find Paul in his first year at Juilliard, intensely unhappy that his studies aren’t going as well as hoped and morosely entering into relationships with older men–an evening with Joseph, a continuing connection with an upstairs neighbor in the same building. When he returns home for a visit, Pamela discovers that he’s gay and assumes wrongly that he’s having an affair with Richard back in New York. After briefly trying to come to terms with the realization by attending a meeting of mothers in similar circumstances, she impulsively go to New York to confront the older man and discuss things with her son. Of course her latest mistaken assumption leads to considerable embarrassment all around.

So long as “Food of Love” sticks to its coming-of-age premise, it’s reasonably effective. Though Bishop sometimes comes across as stilted, he plays off fairly well against Rhys, who’s the very model of the smooth, refined but not entirely happy artist. The two are particularly impressive in the sequence depicting their initial encounter in a Spanish hotel room; what might have been tawdry is rather touching and authentic instead. On the other hand, most of the material dealing with Pamela is overdrawn; it’s all supposed to be comic, of course, but comes across as mostly flat and amateurish. (It’s a serious miscalculation, for example, to have her wear an apron emblazoned with the words “Fruity Kitchen” in one scene.) And while Corduner manages a sometimes striking portrait of a morose older man, the digressions in which he’s involved seem just a tad forced.

If the picture’s handling of its central dramatic situations isn’t always on target, however, it does capture the musical background with considerable aplomb. The clannish, competitive atmosphere of musical rooms and recital halls is well caught, and the rules for success–not unlike those in the film business–are skillfully suggested. Unfortunately, “Food for Love” isn’t nearly as happy in its score. Carles Cases’ string music is soupy and intrusive, emphasizing the soapoperatic tendencies of the script. Like the latter sections of the film itself, it just goes too far.

Paul Feval’s 1857 novel–a story of swordplay, political and economic corruption, love, deception and revenge set in early eighteenth-century France–is an adventure classic in its home country, and it’s been filmed there no fewer than five times. The newest version, adapted and directed by veteran Philippe de Broca (“That Man from Rio,” “King of Hearts”), is vastly enjoyable–a stylish, affectionate, old-fashioned swashbuckler. When Hollywood tries this sort of thing nowadays, the result is either far too heavy (the latest version of Dumas’ “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which was published little more than a decade prior to Feval’s book), or cartoonishly jokey (the various takes on “The Three Musketeers”). The French, on the other hand, still have the knack to do it right: De Broca’s is a witty, elegant, energetic picture happily devoid of the modern penchant for either juvenile cynicism or ponderousness, not unlike (though more lighthearted than) Jean-Paul Rappenau’s “The Horseman on the Roof” (1995).

The hero of the piece–which, if you’re in an operatic mood, could be described as an odd combination of “Otello” and “Rigoletto”–is Legardere (Daniel Auteuil), a happy-go-lucky orphan trained in fencing and acrobatics by a couple of kindly connivers. His prowess with the sword comes to the attention of the flippantly flawless Duke of Nevers (Vincent Perez), who takes him on as a trusted aide although Legardere had been hired to assassinate him. In this capacity he accompanies his new master on a ride to Caylus, where the duke intends to wed his love Blanche (Claire Nebout), who–he’s only just learned–has presented him with a child and potential heir. The duo is pursued, however, by a group of vicious brigands in the employ of Nevers’ oily cousin Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini), who desires both Blanche and the duke’s fortune, with which he wishes to finance a speculative Mississippi land scheme. The marriage takes place, but soon the duke is dead, his new wife carted off, and Legardere on the run with the baby, a girl named Aurore. After faking their deaths, Legardere and the infant take up with a travelling theatrical troupe, with whom, sixteen years later, they return to Paris and the surrogate father prepares his revenge. The scheme involves lots of swordplay, investment chicanery, the liberation of the imprisoned Blanche, the revelation of an abiding love, and the presence of a mysterious hunchback–the “bossu” of Feval’s title.

The plot of “On Guard” is circuitous and episodic, with lots of climaxes and hair-breadth escapes–the novel, after all, was first printed serially in a newspaper (and successfully dramatized by Feval himself in 1863)–but though the twists will hardly come as shocks, there’s an air of comfortable predictability about it all, and it’s played and staged with such elan that the result is completely winning. The cast seems to be having a wonderful time, and their joy is infectious. Auteuil, whose range is apparently limitless, comes across as too old in the initial reels, but in the latter sections he’s perfect, and he seizes on the opportunity for masquerade the last reels provide with glee. Perez makes an effortlessly dashing duke, and Luchini a deliciously sniveling villain; Marie Gillain is fetching as the teenaged Aurore, and Nebout radiant as Blanche. The film is crammed with memorable supporting turns from the likes of Philippe Noiret (as the regent Philippe of Orleans–the story is set during the minority of King Louis XV), Yann Collette (as Gonzague’s vile henchman) and Charlie Nelson (as the villain’s hunchbacked clerk); even the extras have been chosen for their wonderful period look. Of course much of the success of the ambience is due to Bernard Vezat’s exquisite art direction, Christian Gasc’s costume design and the gorgeous cinematography by Jean-Francois Robin, which gives the interiors a luminous glow and captures the wide country vistas and bustling town scenes with unerring precision: many frames would make lovely still photos. Philippe Sarde contributes a charming score, much of it a reworking of eighteenth and nineteenth-century pieces, and the fight choreography by Michel Carliez is outstanding and fun.

But it’s the sense of sheer exuberance and unabashed romanticism that the director brings to the material that gives “On Guard” such charm. You might describe it as the sort of jovial epic they don’t make any more, except in this case de Broca, happily, has.