Thirty-something New Yorker Nora Wilder (Parker Posey) has a terrific name and even better clothes, but she doesn't quite know how her life happened to her. A Sarah Lawrence grad who majored in the arts, Nora ended up with a management job in a trendy downtown hotel, caring to the needs of celebrities. Her mother (Gena Rowlands, the real life mother of the film's director Zoe Cassavetes) aims finely tuned zingers at Nora, criticizing her daughter for the poor choices she's made, for her lack of husband, and Nora finds herself without defense. She is, after all, alone.

All alone. No one loves her. She loves no one. Her best friend Audrey (The Soprano's Drea DeMatteo) is married. Why isn't Nora married? Why doesn't she have kids? Is this really her life? Do all men suck? Why does she only pick the bad ones? Justin Theroux (Inland Empire) gives a delicious performance as one of the bad ones. Should she trust this one? How about the cute French guy (Melvil Poupaud) with the irresistible accent and the silly hat?

That's the essential gist of Cassavettes' debut picture Broken English: Nora lamenting. While Nora laments, she also smokes a lot of cigarettes, drinks plenty of red wine, sits on park benches, and goes to parties where she meets unsuitable men. Nora pulls her hair back. She wears it loose. Her outfits are always interesting and enviable.

No One Laments Like Parker Posey

I know this all sounds like a put down. The surprising part is how ridiculously pleasing Broken English manages to be. The first third and then the last fairly sing: funny, smart, well-paced, with Parker Posey at her finest. There is an unfortunate middle, it's true, during the actual romance.

Parker Posey is perhaps the only actress you want in this role. Maybe, quite possibly, she is Nora Wilder: Posey's an infamous resident of the East Village, she certainly dresses like a hipster, she's not married, and has been frank about her struggle for better roles. "The casting directors ask for actresses like Parker Posey," she lamented in the press day for Personal Velocity. "But they don't want me." Posey played yet another variation of the well-dressed, well-educated, cynical New Yorker in Rebecca Miller's indie film. It's a role Posey plays particularly well. Remember the young Posey in Party Girl? Perfect.

But no matter: like the debut novelist who is invariable accused of writing autobiography, Posey is acting. She's taking her cues from Cassavetes's assured direction and speaking dialogue from a finely tuned script, which Cassavetes wrote in response to the overwhelming number of people who felt they had to right to probe about her own single status. The fictive, if recognizable Nora, is a pleasure to watch. Because this is a movie, because it's a loosely structured comedy and not a searing drama, Nora's pain is far more appealing than real, ordinary pain. Most important, Broken English nails the ending. A winning final moment is essential, and in tandem, Cassavetes and Posey both come through. In Paris!