THIS unsettlingly hollow French comedy begins with an animated title sequence that nods towards the work of Saul Bass. Back in the 1950s, when the great man was at the peak of his powers, the southern resorts of France still dripped with opulent cool. Any film set in, say, Biarritz or Nice that managed to secure Bass's services was sure to feature plenty of jewel robberies by men in well-cut dinner jackets.

Do the folk behind Pricelessrecognise that those days have passed? The film, which paddles in the same murky water as mainstream comedies such as Heartbreakersand Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, offers us Audrey Tautou as - let's be kind - an unapologetic gold-digger with a taste for lobster and impractical shoes. Her days are spent squandering the money given to her by older men. Her nights are taken up with repaying their investment in personal services.

There is a great deal of luxury in the picture: crisp sheets, spectacular views, enormous shellfish, box-fresh limousines. But the overpowering impression is one of seediness and overstuffed torpor. Intentionally or not, the film makes this comfortable world seem unimaginably dull. All that jaunty incidental Muzak, all those blinding white interiors: it's like being trapped in the bedroom department of an upmarket store for two hours.

The story revolves around the relationship between the energetic Tautou and Gad Elmaleh's nervy hotel employee. After stumbling into a one-night stand with the courtesan (she mistakes him for a wealthy guest) he ends up becoming her eager pupil. Attaching himself to a conspicuously wealthy older woman, the former barman rapidly perfects the art of exchanging sexual companionship for shirts, watches and motorbikes.

The latest in a long line of entertainments that try to make something palatable of prostitution, this somewhat dubious - though well acted - film is very unsure of its own cynicism. The opening two acts attempt to represent the duo as calculating businesspeople involved in mutually beneficial relationships with sober, responsible adults. But, as sure as Day follows Doris, Gad and Audrey will eventually realise the error of their ways and seek bourgeois happy endings.

It's a bit of a cheat and it makes the viewer feel a little like one of Audrey's compliant Johns.

DONALD CLARKE