Notre Dame: Valérie Donzelli’s aesthetic gambit rises this comedy above the story it tells, but the starting point is so low that the end result is middling at best. The protagonist is a passenger of her own story, and she is surrounded by equally uninteresting characters; the romance is unengaging, the comedy is irrelevant. That said, the film has some interludes (all of them within the realm of the fantastic, well-staged, shot, and edited) that provide an unusual and curious way of advancing the story. Donzelli herself plays the protagonist, and she is appropriate in a low-key comic role as the bumbling woman. Thomas Scimeca is somewhat stiff as her man-child ex. Pierre Deladonchamps at least looks the part of the reporter woman swoon for. Neither here nor there, but the musical piece that plays over the end credits, Solfeggio in C Minor executed by Eugen Cicero, is wonderful.