Scott's World -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

Americans generally are reluctant to see foreign language movies so often released in so-called art-houses. We provincials hesitate if the director's name is unfamiliar and the cast unknown to us. Too many won't sit through a film with subtitles.

However, those who enjoy originality in a delightful love story superbly acted will love "Mostly Martha."

No fireballs, no killing, no heroics; a cast of performers who don't appear to be acting so much as simply caught in the act of living.

This German film released by Paramount Classics in selected theaters around the country boasts excellent actors who look like ordinary people, with German dialogue and some French and Italian, all appropriately subtitled.

Filmed almost entirely in Hamburg, Germany, with many scenes set in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant, the story deals with Martha, a top woman chef whose life is complicated by the death of her sister.

Martha's 8-year-old niece comes to live with her, raising havoc with Martha's career and emotional life, exacerbated by the arrival of a new sub-chef, an Italian charmer who further confounds Martha.

The movie provides believable people in everyday circumstances coping with life's exigencies in very human ways.

There is no Hollywood flash and dash, no movie-star beauty nor heroics to mar character plausibility and solutions to delicate personal issues. "Mostly Martha" is at once touching, graceful, sometimes amusing and sentimental, but ultimately satisfyingly genuine.

Responsible for this extraordinarily enjoyable, under-publicized, under-advertised movie is Sandra Nettlebeck, a first-time writer-director.

Martina Gedeck stars as Martha with young Maxime Foerste as her niece Lina, and Sergio Castellitto as Mario, the new Italian chef.

Nettlebeck, a slender, comely Hamburg native, said this week, "My cast is not known in the United States, but some are stars in Europe. Martina is an acclaimed actress in Germany and Sergio is an Italian superstar. Ulrich Thomsen, who plays Martha's neighbor Sam, is a world-famous star."

Director Nettlebeck waxed lyrical about Maxime Foerste who plays the feisty young niece.

"Maxime is an incredibly talented girl," she said, smiling. "She is a gift for any director because when a kid looses interest in the work, you're done with. You can't very well wave their contract at them."

Little Maxime displays none of the patented cuteness of usual Hollywood moppets. By turns, she plays Lina as a petulant brat, a tiresome lump, and an adorable waif.

Curiously, Nettlebeck learned directing at San Francisco State when she spent five years in California.

"I didn't know who I would cast when I wrote the script," Nettlebeck said.

"I was in France and thought I'd never find anyone to play Martha in Germany. When I went to the Munich film festival I saw Martina in a movie and I told myself, 'That's the woman I need,' and realized I would have to convince her.

"She loved the part but was a little apprehensive about working with a first-time director. I assured her she would be fine. I talked her into it.

"Martina was comfortable during production because I established a collaborative relationship."

Nettlebeck found it somewhat difficult that Martina spoke no Italian and Sergio's character had to speak fluent German in all their scenes together.

"They didn't know what they were saying to each other," she said, "so they communicated on entirely non-verbal levels. Actually, it worked great.

"The chemistry between the two characters played on a different level.

"I didn't want Sergio to feel uncomfortable with it, so I edited the whole film in Italian for him and then dubbed his voice in German."

In addition to writing and directing "Mostly Martha," Nettlebeck also plays the small role of Martha's sister.

Most importantly, none of Nettlebeck's characters are Hollywood cliches.

The Italians aren't comic opera kinetic gumbahs, and the Germans aren't wooden Otto Preminger krauts.

Nettlebeck wrote her lovers as believable, genuine people flavored with subtle traces of ethnic accents, characteristic vocal idiosyncrasies and physical gestures -- just as they occur in real life in Europe today.

The people she visualized happen to be Europeans, but these characters could be found in any country on the planet because she nimbly wrote them as universal subjects dealing with ubiquitous situations.

The principal characters are sympathetic but sometimes vexing when their contrasting backgrounds and personalities create misunderstanding and confusion.

Yet, as it inevitably must, love conquers all.

Unlike most Hollywood films, there is no violence in "Mostly Martha," just as there is no violence in most lives.

There are no villains, no bad guys versus good guys, no major all-encompassing issues of cosmic magnitude.

"Mostly Martha" is mostly delightful, a story of love, tenderness and understanding gently unfolding as human beings, without a great deal of unnecessary palaver, communicate intelligently with significant and heart-stirring consequences.

See it; you'll like it.