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If you can handle subtitles, and you like retro romantic comedy, then you're in for a treat.

"The Women on the 6th Floor," a contemporary French-Spanish take on class distinction a la "Upstairs Downstairs," is a light, charming confection that takes the time and attention needed to get you hooked on the characters.

And because it does, you care about possible outcomes as the story unfolds.

Jean-Louis Joubert (Fabrice Luchini) is a 1960s Paris investment banker who doesn't know he's suffocating in the box of a life he's created for himself.

Nor does his wife, Suzanne (Sandrine Kiberlain), a simple country girl who married into an affluent social circle of charity events, shopping, personal pampering and dealing with the servants.

In this case, that includes Jean-Louis' lifelong crabby maid. She and Suzanne can't stand each other. Now that Jean-Louis' mother has died, the maid stages a showdown — and loses.

Meanwhile, on the floor above the Jouberts' swank apartment, five Spanish maids are crowded into small bedrooms and share a single, plugged bathroom. No hot water. No bath. They squabble with the confrontational building manager and each other.

Into the midst of all this discontent arrives Maria (Natalia Verbeke), a beautiful ray of sunshine who is the niece of a sixth-floor dweller. She moves in with them.

It's Maria's friendly face that Suzanne chooses as the new household servant, and her presence turns everything upside down on both the fifth and sixth floors.

Jean-Louis falls in love with the perfect 3-minute egg Maria prepares each morning. It doesn't take him much longer to develop a crush on Maria. He soon finds himself granting a higher salary, having the upstairs bathroom fixed, giving the ladies investment advice and more.

"Those women up there are alive," one Joubert son tells the other. "Down here we're dead."

He's so right. As Jean-Louis joins the maids at church, on a picnic, at an impromptu sixth-floor party, Suzanne imagines he's having an affair with a wealthy client. A jealous tiff leads to banishment, but Jean-Louis finds he prefers life on the sixth floor.

Director and co-screenwriter Philippe Le Guay supplies telling detail to give each of the maids, plus other supporting characters, personalities. He also makes sure not to simply make the maids heroines and the Jouberts villains as the story moves along.

Nudity and sexual situations would earn this an R if it were rated, though it's suggestive rather than explicit — mild enough to be suitable for mature teens.

Contact the writer: 402-444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com