Every now and again there is a touching and heartwarming film that also succeeds in being witty and intelligent without oozing too much sap. A decade or so ago, there was "Cinema Paradiso" and now there is Francois Dupeyron's wonderful "Monsieur Ibrahim" (perhaps Sony Pictures thought the rest of the title "... and the Flowers of the Koran" wouldn't fly with American audiences).

Omar Sharif stars as Ibrahim, a shopkeeper in 1960s Montmartre who slowly comes to befriend young Momo (Pierre Boulanger), who lives alone with his father across the street.

Momo's mother left them years before and both father and son struggle to live together in the shadow of her absence and in the absence of Momo's elder brother, whom his father (Gilbert Melki) assures him was much better than Momo at all things.

Momo, however, is a smart and inventive kid and when he turns 16, he cracks open his piggy bank to splurge on one of the numerous prostitutes that line his street. Soon, he manages to figure out how to make regular visits. Despite his experience in the sack (rented though it may be), Momo is still charmingly bumbling and naïve when it comes to the young girl downstairs that he begins to woo.

Momo is Jewish, yet this doesn't prevent him from being fascinated by Ibrahim's quotes from the Koran. Momo, after all, is happy and thankful that Ibrahim -- a Turk whose wife returned home years earlier, apparently unable to live in France -- provides Momo not only with gratis treats and foods, but shows him how to stretch his weekly food budget (he does the shopping, cooking and cleaning at home) and get back at his dad at the same time.

"Monsieur Ibrahim" is so simple, so sincere a film that it's a shame to give away any of the plot in advance. Suffice it to say, that over the course of 90 or so minutes, Momo and Ibrahim grow ever closer and each provides the other with a daily ray of sunshine.

At the same time, Momo and Ibrahim provide us with a image that many of us yearn for in the real world: the image of Muslim and Jew (or substitute Protestant and Catholic in Northern Ireland, Christian and Muslim, or whatever) not only getting along, but leaning on, and gaining strength and knowledge from, one another.

Not nearly as "magical" as "Amelie," "Monsieur Ibrahim" -- infused with the rollicking spirit of the nascent rock and roll movement, which provides the fabulously appropriate soundtrack -- has a similar spirit, however. Wistful and dreamy, it's grounded and in the end, quite powerful.

"Monsieur Ibrahim" opens Friday, April 2 at Landmark's Downer Theatre.