The rapier thrusts pierce hearts, but not flesh in The Duchess of Langeais, nouvelle vague mainstay Jacques Rivette’s trenchant, exceedingly handsome and surprisingly moving adaptation of Honore de Balzac’s slender, same-named 1834 tome. Set against the backdrop of the French Restoration, the film honors Balzac — most of the dialogue is taken directly from his novel — while re-imagining its literary source in uniquely cinematic and satisfying ways. The result is one of the notoriously “difficult” octogenarian director’s most accessible works to date, and as fine a movie as any released so far this year.

Most of the action is confined to luxuriously cosseted Parisian drawing rooms where the title character (Arnaud Desplechin’s favorite leading lady, the incomparable Jeanne Balibar), a très bored, inconveniently married socialite, engages in a heady game of high-stakes flirtation with soldier Armand de Montriveau (Guillaume Depardieu). Newly returned to France after two years of captivity in an African prison, the physically (and spiritually) wounded Armand is catnip for the coquettish Duchess.

Antoinette de Langeais takes evident delight in teasing and cajoling lovestruck, lovesick swain Armand. Of course, she never realizes — until it’s too late, natch — that her provocative teasing signifies more to him that just idle wordplay and an amusing way to pass the time during tedious evenings on the party circuit. The shocking resolution to their verbal — yet never physically consummated — tête-à-têtes has profound, far-reaching consequences for both parties.

Rivette and Balzac’s ultimate irony — that the Duchess may have cared for Armand more than she was ever willing to admit — would make this a comedy of l’amour fou if it weren’t so wrenchingly sad. Balibar and Depardieu, virtually the only actors onscreen for more than two hours, make a combustible fire-and-ice pairing. Depardieu’s halting diffidence as a performer — he’s the exact opposite of his father Gerard’s gusty force-of-nature screen presence — neatly balances Balibar’s decorous, actressy flourishes. Armand is all about steely rectitude; Antoinette’s coy posturing is artifice writ large.

The dangers of toying with someone’s affections as a parlor game — an enduring theme in French literature as Pierre Choderlos de Lacios’ Les Liaisons Dangereues and its myriad incarnations proved — makes great drama and sometimes great art. The Duchess of Langeais succeeds on both counts.

The Duchess of Langeais: 8:55 p.m. Friday, June 13 and 5 p.m. Saturday, June 14 at Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, 11141 East Blvd., 216-421-7450.