Luzer Twersky and Hadas Yaron in Félix & Meira (Oscilloscope Labs)

A young, married Hasidic mother (Fill the Void’s Hadas Yaron) is first noticed by thirtysomething  Félix (Martin Dubreuil), while she’s waiting for her order at a corner store, and he compliments her on the drawing  she’s making for her baby daughter. Later he sees her pushing a stroller on a cold Montreal day, and he jogs toward her and attempts to start a conversation. She looks away and admonishes him not to speak to her.

Such is not the soil from which great love affairs often spring, but the story of their tentative attachment to each other, and the turmoil it potentially causes in the woman’s Orthodox community, has freshness and beauty. It’s to co-writer and director Maxime Giroux’s credit that the pain of the film’s love triangle is evinced without any tears. There’s a delicious irony in Meira and her husband, Shulem, have their biggest fight at night while lying in their separate beds, never speaking louder than a whisper. A later scene between Félix and Shulem is noteworthy for how little is said, and how well both men contain their emotion. The connection between Félix and Meira builds with similar restraint. There’s little laughter, little touching. They go out dancing, but Meira is shy, and one observer notes that Félix has the physical grace of a vacuum cleaner.

The film’s a kind of throwback to old-fashioned romance: the lengths Félix goes to just to get a glimpse of Meira’s back are hilarious and heartbreaking. At the same time, there’s no certainty that these two are really compatible. If Meira doesn’t know who she is, how can she know who she should be with? Félix, too, is unsure of himself: he holds onto grief that has left him aimless. There’s a bit of Ben and Elaine at the end of The Graduate about them, with a flushed “what now?” look on their faces.

Shulem catches a case of identity crisis from the two protagonists. He begins as little more than a scold because  Meira fails to live up to what’s expected of her. Then he becomes more bewildered over the inability to connect with his wife, and his growing confusion humanizes him. Luzer Twersky’s performance lends an emotional anchor to the story: Someone will get seriously hurt here.

At times, the movie can be too quiet. Because Meira says so little, her dilemma or the source of her discontent is unclear. Is there something in her that uniquely chafes against the orthodoxy of her community, or are we meant to trust that any creative, introspective woman would be driven to malaise by such a lifestyle? Giroux doesn’t appear to be making such a statement; there are other Hasidic women here who seem perfectly content. But the absence of depth in Meira (though not in Yaron’s performance) leaves little else to hold on to than such generalizations. Still, loneliness and alienation are universal, so Meira serves suitably as a kind of outline, like the drawings she makes, of an outsider, which viewers can fill in as he or she likes.

In addition, the film makes great use of the song “After Laughter (Comes Tears)” by1960’s soul singer Wendy Rene. In an early scene, Meria listens to it on the sly, taking the record from a hiding place beneath the couch. The music serves as a stand-in for her voice, speaking fluently in an emotional language that leaves its listener tongue tied.

Félix and Meira moves slowly, but it carefully lays the groundwork for a number of moving closing scenes. Self-discovery allows for no shortcuts, but when rendered as skillfully as it is here, it’s a trip worth taking.