Marion Barbeau in Rise (Emmanuelle Jacobson-Roques/Blue Fox Entertainment)

Cédric Klapisch’s new film kicks off with a powerful jolt of artistry and intensity. The ballet La Bayadère is in progress before a packed house, and the elaborate discipline playing out on stage, accompanied by swelling classical music, is mirrored by a perfectly choreographed scene of betrayal and intrigue in the wings. This risky, virtually wordless sequence lasts almost 15 minutes, builds to a startling climax, and ends in a tragic injury. Rise takes a radically different tack from there, but the opening has been close to unforgettable.

The initial passage sets up the movie’s main story arc. Distressed by seeing her boyfriend embracing another woman backstage, driven ballerina Elise Gautier (Marion Barbeau of the Paris Opera Ballet) breaks her ankle in full view of the public during a high-profile performance. An unsmiling doctor gives her the terrible news that she won’t be able to dance again for as long as two years. At 26, Elise may be missing the narrow peak of her dancing career. How can Elise cope with this wrenching change? How can she rebuild her life?

Klapisch puts his heroine through her paces as she faces new and unfamiliar music. It helps that Elise is level-headed, smart, and not neurotic. Money doesn’t seem to be an issue either. She does have her challenges, however. The young woman has to deal with a distant father (Denis Podalydès), whose self-absorption pushes her away. She struggles to fend off Yann (François Civil), her clingy, emotional pest of a physical therapist. Paris and its memories weigh on the dancer, so for a change of pace, a stay in Brittany has Elise working in an arts colony kitchen, where she puts her trust in the kind administrator Josiane (Muriel Robin), who delivers soulful advice of the kind Robin Williams used to dole out in his more sentimental roles.

In Brittany, Elise experiences an artistic and spiritual renewal. She begins to dance again—unconvincingly easily, perhaps, considering the scope of her injury—with a modern dance troupe, finding her groove in the studio and on the province’s windswept beaches. It’s there that she connects with an encouraging New Age-y dance teacher (real-life company leader Hofesh Schechter) and with a love interest in Mehdi (Mehdi Baki), a tightly coiled hip-hop dancer. And it’s there that the movie embarks on a sweet, reassuring path. Things sure fall into place painlessly for Elise, who is self-reliant yet adored and never, ever bitter at the turn her life has taken. Her fate seems almost too good to be true.

Thankfully, Klapisch mostly avoids a Pollyanna Positive trap with a sympathetic treatment of his main character and of the sometimes annoying but redeemable second leads who surround her. Quirks and a sense of humor add a spring to the movie’s step. Additionally, Barbeau brings thoughtful vulnerability to her portrayal of a young woman grappling with an unexpected setback.

Kind-hearted and poignant, Rise will win over a cynical heart or two. That dynamite opening sequence, though, teases the memory with the lingering promise of something stronger and more majestic—what might have been.