The premise — two young American men (Paul Rudd and Romany Malco) come to rural France to claim a castle they’ve inherited from a deceased great-uncle, only to face a quartet of entrenched servants who have no intention of leaving — threatens dopy farce and smug intercultural comedy. Instead, Jesse Peretz’s film delivers a study in the unpredictable consequences of structural misunderstanding.

It was a good idea to do stylized sit-com rituals and idiotic verbal humor (mostly arising from Rudd’s mangled French) in a Dogme 95–influenced style, with digital video, hand-held camerawork, and underlit sets. And Peretz takes a refreshingly unprogrammatic attitude toward his characters. The sweet and guileless Rudd is revealed as a self-absorbed neurotic and, eventually, an asshole. The brash, unsentimental Malco turns out to be level-headed and kind. The French characters are cynical and self-interested, but the film never repudiates them. The lack of a strong directorial point of view proves a greater liability than the lack of hilarity, but The Château remains engaging and surprising. In English and French with English subtitles. (91 minutes)