Review: Wife Returns in ‘Ismael’s Ghosts.’ Confusion Ensues.

The cinematic cosmos of French director Arnaud Desplechin teems with literary allusions. He frequently makes films about a character named Paul Dedalus — a nod to the young hero of Joyce’s “Ulysses.” And Desplechin’s characters sometimes soliloquize with words adapted from Philip Roth’s novels. This latest film, “Ismael’s Ghosts,” adds Henri Bloom, an aging filmmaker, to Desplechin’s oeuvre, and his name, of course, evokes the older protagonist in Joyce’s novel.

For all that, Desplechin’s films cannot, or ought not, be considered literary. Cinema is the only medium that can accommodate the narrative sprawl that has distinguished this director’s work since even before “My Sex Life ... or How I Got Into an Argument” (1996), a film in which he originated several characters who incarnate in his later works.

“Ismael’s Ghosts” opens with a film within a film, an espionage thriller about one Ivan Dedalus, a globe-trotting diplomat turned spy. (He’s probably related to Paul, but you don’t have to understand this convoluted situation to enjoy the movie.) Ivan springs from the mind of Ismael Vuillard (Mathieu Amalric), whose reverie is interrupted by a 3 a.m. phone call from his former father-in-law, Henri Bloom (Laszlo Szabo). Both men are still mourning the loss of Carlotta (hello, “Vertigo” people), Bloom’s daughter and Ismael’s wife, who disappeared 20 years ago. Ismael is now involved with Sylvia (Charlotte Gainsbourg), an astrophysicist, who, shortly after her introduction becomes the movie’s temporary narrator, and takes the story back a couple of years. On return to the present, Ismael and Sylvia hole up in a beach house, and one afternoon while sunbathing, Sylvia is approached by a woman (Marion Cotillard) who introduces herself as Carlotta.

If you think this messes things up, you are correct, and the complications drive Sylvia away from Ismael. This turmoil comes close to driving Ismael, and Bloom, mad. Further developments bring back Ivan (Louis Garrel) — both his fictional iteration as dreamed up by Ismael and his real-life manifestation as Ismael’s brother, who’s come to see the filmmaker as a family idiot of sorts.

There’s a lot of rage in Desplechin’s characters, especially the male ones, and as felt and articulated in this film by both Ismael and Bloom, rage is both terrifying and absurdly funny. (In this, Desplechin finds a close affinity with Roth, particularly the author’s 1995 novel, “Sabbath’s Theater.”) Amalric, who’s been a major player for Desplechin since the 1990s, is always adept at balancing on the knife-edge of hysteria and hilarity. Szabo is more magisterial, but also conveys the way that heroic men can be ridiculous.

Gainsbourg’s Sylvia is a voice of reason, demonstrating that tantalizing sensuality and grounded serenity needn’t be mutually exclusive. But she’s no pushover. As for Carlotta, Cotillard sometimes plays her with confounding, slow-motion swagger. The actress also has instantaneous access to the character’s affecting vulnerability. Carlotta initially seems like a negative force, but she proves to be an object lesson about life’s curveballs and our tendency to overreact to them. As for Garrel, his exasperation as the “real” Ivan makes him the film’s most droll presence.

As is customary in Desplechin’s work, there’s a lot of dialogue in “Ismael’s Ghosts,” but this movie’s nerve endings vibrate most avidly and tenderly in scenes where not a word is spoken: Sylvia on her first ride home with Ismael, looking up in serene rapture from a cab window toward the night sky; Ismael, angry and confused, framed between walls at the top of a dark staircase; Carlotta in tears, letting the blast of water from an ornamental shower head blast against her brow. It’s moments like these that make “Ismael’s Ghosts” an unforgettable experience.

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