Antoine and Christine now happily married, though life can be quite tough they don't seem worried, selling flowers in the day, trying to make violin pay, and then a baby, to make it all a bit more hurried. A chance presents for Antoine to set sail, on a corporate ladder, the bottom marks the trail, meets a Japanese distraction, causes confusing attraction, it's not the baby that will cry and whine and wail.

The continuing trials and tribulations of Antoine Doinel, who continues to excavate sizable holes to fall in and then spend his time and energy escaping from. Not quite as engaging as Stolen Kisses but enjoyable and relatable nonetheless.

In "Bed and Board," the boyish Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) settles down to married life with Christine (Claude Jade). But while it seems like a promising idea for this beloved character to move on to the next phase of his life, the film does not live up to its potential.

"Stolen Kisses," the preceding movie, was a romantic comedy with such a consistently sweet and charming tone that it became something more than mere fluff. "Bed and Board" maintains the same sparkling tone for about the first hour. Christine and Antoine's apartment building is inhabited by the quirkiest group of Parisians to come along until "Amélie," thirty years later. (Both movies even have an old man who refuses to leave his apartment.) Indeed, the movie, and its hero Antoine, are in love with quirkiness: Antoine works dyeing flowers and operating remote-controlled model boats, which are even stranger than the odd jobs he held in "Stolen Kisses." There are also some tenderly idiosyncratic scenes between the newlyweds.

But "Bed and Board" becomes much less interesting when it aims for a more serious tone and introduces infidelity into the plot: Antoine cheats on Christine with a Japanese woman, Kyoko. To add insult to injury, Kyoko is a blatant stereotype of the "exotic, submissive Asian woman," wearing kimono and writing calligraphy. Maybe Christine and Antoine were always a mismatched couple—Christine is very practical and bourgeois, while Antoine is a fanciful dreamer—but if he has to cheat on her, couldn't he do it with someone amusing?

Obviously the Antoine Doinel series dealt with some very serious themes in its first installment, "The 400 Blows." But that movie was a unique, distinctive look inside the head of a troubled 14-year-old boy; however, the serious themes of "Bed and Board" are found in innumerable French movies about infidelity. It's too bad that "Bed and Board" falls so flat in its second half, because its first half is whimsical comedy at its best.

Unfortunately, I saw this film AFTER I saw the other Antoine Doinel films by Truffaut. Because it was seen out of sequence, I KNEW that Antoine was destined to destroy his happy marriage with his philandering. So, the movie was a wistful "what might have been" throughout for me. And this is a REAL shame, as the first 2/3 of the movie really captivated me. It was charming, the characters likable and I really found myself rooting for them--even though I KNEW it wouldn't last. If only Truffaut had resisted the cynicism that so permeated the French New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s--it was as if, according to an unwritten rule, they HAD to make the story a real downer. I don't mind movies that end sadly, but after a healthy dose of "marriage and love stink" movies from Truffaut (and many of his contemporaries), I can't help but feel depressed and wonder if I should spend more time watching Japanese, American or other types of cinema. CAN'T they just live happily ever after SOME TIMES!?