It’s a sad day for romantics everywhere when the French are ditching Paris to conduct their love affairs in London.

Writer-director Lorraine Levy has obviously been watching too many Richard Curtis movies. What’s more, this soppy, sloppy French froth makes Notting Hill feel like a caffeine rush.

Fired from his job in Paris, Mathias (Lindon) is persuaded by his London-based pal Antoine (Elbé) to buy a quaint librairie in the city’s French district (South Kensington, apparently).

His daughter Emilie is at school there, and it gives him the perfect excuse to rekindle the flame with his ex-wife (Sodupe). Unfortunately, it also gives her the perfect excuse to go back to Paris with her new beau, leaving Mathias to play the single parent.

Since Antoine is also divorced and his son is Emilie’s best friend, Mathias thinks it would be a great idea if they all shared the same house like one big, happy, double-daddied family.

Moody and domestically inclined, Antoine (think Eric Bana in a pinny)will only agree if Mathias abides by his list of house rules, a ridiculous set of romantic hurdles which have no place in the real world.

But this isn’t the real world, it’s a world where a middle-aged bloodhound like Mathias can score with a gorgeous mademoiselle half his age like Audrey (Ledoyen).

And perhaps if Antoine spent less time clucking and being unreasonable, he might realise that Sophie the friendly florist is absolutely nuts about him. It says it all when the kids - also too good to be true - are the most grown up people in the picture.

Levy doesn’t make the most of what she’s got. More could have been made of a potentially amusing case of mistaken identity and the odd-couple scenario provides precious little fun.

And since all the locations are made to look as French as possible, why bother shlepping everybody over to London in the first place?

As substantial as lemon sorbet but with none of the kick, this amounts to no more than the collected romantic notions of a naïve schoolgirl.

Elliott Noble