“Why do you let yourself get this way?” demands an exasperated jazz singer of her morose, glowering former lover. Subjected to the ex’s baleful eye-rolling, we are wondering the same thing, although with no particular sense of urgency.

Marion Hill’s drama, chronicling the reunion of onetime polyamorous female flames, makes use of some appealing actors and a charming South of France location. The film also won the Audience Award at Sundance, an acknowledgment of its warm heart and perhaps kudos for an attempt to take on polyamory and its complications. But Ma Belle, My Beauty fights to overcome thin writing, unconvincing motivations, and the burden of making a not particularly compelling love story interesting. 

American singer Bertie (Idella Johnson) is living with her handsome Swiss-Spanish musician husband, Fred (charming Lucien Guignard), in a rambling Cévennes villa. Both are struggling with the realization that Bertie no longer wants to perform in his band—an inconvenient truth, as their musical partnership is one of the prime reasons she’s in France. Unbeknownst to Bertie, Fred has invited Bertie’s ex-girlfriend Lane (Hannah Pepper) for a protracted stay.

Director Hill arranges a companionable, easygoing scene between Fred and Lane where they wordlessly cook together, onions sizzling in the background; the vibe between Lane and Bertie is choppier, first reflecting Bertie’s shock at Lane’s surprise arrival and then bristling with old grievances and reproaches. A frustrating cat-and-mouse romantic pursuit begins. Lane and Bertie smell melons in the picturesque town market, then quarrel. Bertie succumbs to Lane’s sultry advances, then pulls back; bristles when Lane woos her, then pouts when she pays attention to someone else. It’s hard to stay invested in the relationship.

Pepper is an intriguing presence onscreen, but she has to play a sullen, directionless character who is a bit of a drag. Lane is also an unwilling pawn in a scheme (and in the script). As it turns out, Fred brought Lane to the villa as a catalyst to inspire Bernie to resume singing. The projection of antsy, injured Lane as a chanteuse-whisperer who will magically get Bertie belting out jazz-pop numbers again may have some viewers doing a little eye-rolling of their own.

The plot thickens, or sort of thickens, when Lane rather implausibly picks up an Israeli hottie at a party. We are delighted to meet this character because A.) she refreshingly has nothing to do with the others’ tangled head games, and B.) she is played by the effervescent Sivan Noam Shimon, who radiates positive energy and warms up every scene in which she appears. The new player will stir up Bertie’s jealousy and provoke more overwrought conversations as the story first shambles and then quickly closes on a rushed, unrealized last note. 

For a film about a revived passion, Ma Belle, My Beauty runs oddly low on energy and fire. The movie’s desires never really feel threatening, consuming, or real, no matter how much the characters argue about them.