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By Dan Leone

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A PAIR OF adopted brothers – the neurotic, hippy-dippy white-guy philosophy major Graham (Paul Rudd) and the all-business African American Web entrepreneur Rex (Romany Malco) – travel to the south of France to sell a castle they've unexpectedly inherited from a recently deceased uncle. The castle's staff, including a comely maid (Sylvie Testud), subtly tries to sabotage the duo's attempts to unload the property lest they have nowhere to live. Commence crazy fish-outta-water shenanigans. Certainly, Graham's affable slacker declarations ("Dude, this is a sweet moat!"), Rex's hyperaggressive attempts to seem street-savvy, and the mangling of the Gallic lingua wouldn't exactly seem out of place in the Miramax-imized ideal of cutesy foreign boutique flicks. But writer-director Jesse Peretz (the man responsible for that Mentos-flavored Foo Fighters video) bypasses the material's inherent audience-friendly expectations, opting for a more personal, intimate road less traveled that makes all the difference. The film's bemused, off-the-cuff feel and emphasis on the melancholy over the feel-good recalls a time before "independent comedy" meant sickly sweet dross and Greek weddings. Peretz and his cast, especially Rudd, play both the laughs and the epiphanies with an appealing sense of modesty, unafraid to take unforeseen turns and content to slowly win viewers over, one punctured genre caricature at a time. Surprisingly gentle and giddily goofy, The Chateau's less-is-more demeanor occasionally crosses the line from genuine sweetness to near-flatlining tweeness. But compared with some other diabetic romps about families that have managed to gum their way up the charts, this house of cards actually beats to the rhythm of a real, human pulse. (David Fear)