By Gregg Shapiro

Contributing writer

In theaters

Starting Out in the Evening (Roadside Attractions)—Heather (Lauren Ambrose), an intelligent and aggressive graduate student, contacts Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella in a performance worthy of Oscar buzz), a “New York intellectual” writer with four old out-of-print novels to his name, to inquire if she may interview him for her thesis project.

The private and somewhat reclusive Schiller, who in spite of being flattered, feels that the persistent Heather’s project is of “questionable merit,” but agrees to meet with her nevertheless. Heather is nothing if not persuasive and before you know it has worked her way into Schiller’s life and affections in often devious ways.

Meanwhile, Schiller’s daughter Ariel (Lili Taylor), a former dancer turned Pilates instructor, is coming to terms with turning 40 and making her own suspect plans to become a single mother. She is seeing Victor (Michael Cumpsty), a lawyer who is “a good catch,” but she doesn’t want to marry him. She and ex-lover Casey (Adrian Lester), who has just returned to New York after a few years away, begin their relationship anew, even though he still doesn’t want to have children—the primary reason they broke up in the first place. Leonard and Ariel’s father-daughter relationship, both the strongest and most tentative of the three, also takes its share of hits throughout the course of the film and, like the other relationships, is forever changed by the often surprising course of events that brings them all together, however briefly.

“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Miramax)—Visual artist turned filmmaker Julian Schnabel has returned with his third biopic (preceded by “Basquiat” and “Before Night Falls”). “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (played by Mathieu Amalric). Bauby, an editor at Elle Magazine, awakes from a three-week coma following a severe stroke in 1995 at age 43 to find that he is paralyzed from head to toe, with the exception of his left eye. It is through that eye that we see Bauby’s terrifying world, a world in which he feels he has become trapped in his body, likened to a diving bell or an old-fashioned deep-sea diving suit. It is also with that eye that he is eventually able to be set free (like a butterfly) and communicate through a series of blinks, enabling him to actually spell out words by signaling with it when his caregivers get to the appropriate letters.

The system was such a success that Bauby was able to write his memoir, on which the film is based. As someone well-versed in the visual, Schnabel’s vision of Bauby’s world, both internal and external, filled with flashbacks of happier times with his father (played by Max Von Sydow), the mother of his three children (Emmanuelle Seigner) and even his mistress, draws us in and never lets us look away. Captivating from beginning to end, the film also doesn’t shy away from the trauma and agony Bauby faced during the brief period of his recovery (he died in 1997), but never fails to offer hard-won glimmers of hope and possibilities. In French with English subtitles.

Limited runs

The 1st Romanian Film Festival of Chicago continues at the StanMansion, 2408 N. Kedzie, with screenings of “Stuff and Dough” (“Marfa si Banii”), directed by Cristi Puiu, Dec. 12 at 7:30 p.m.; and “Philanthropy” (“Filantropica”), directed by Nae Caranfil, Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m. Visit www.roundtablesociety.org for tickets and information.

Back at Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, by popular demand, Gary Hustwit’s “Helvetica,” celebrating the 50th anniversary of the typeface, runs Dec. 14 -20.

Screening Disability, the monthly film and discussion series focusing on the pressing social issues facing disabled people, curated and moderated by Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell, presents “How to Eat an Elephant,” “Forbidden Acts,” and “Braindamadj’d . . . Take II,” Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. at the Claudia Cassidy Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph

Volker Schlöndorff's award-winning 1979 adaptation of Nobel Prize-winner Günther Grass' allegorical novel, “The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel),” is screened Dec. 17 at 7 p.m. as part of the "German Cinema Now" contemporary film screenings series (in German with English subtitles) in the 2nd floor Brandenburg Room of the Dank-Haus German Cultural Center, 4740 N. Western. Call (773) 561-9181.

“Mapping Stem Cell Research: Terra Incognita,” Maria Finitzo’s documentary about Dr. Jack Kessler, a prominent neurologist who shifted his diabetes research to stem cell research when his daughter became paralyzed from the waist down, brings the stem cell debate to the forefront when it’s screened Dec. 15 at 2 p.m. at the Claudia Cassidy Theater in the Chicago Cultural Center, 77 E. Randolph.

Photojournalists-turned-filmmakers Steve Connors and Molly Bingham discuss “Meeting Resistance,” their acclaimed documentary about the Iraq war from the perspective of the Iraqi insurgents, at a special film screening Dec. 16 at 3 p.m. at the Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th. Call (773) 445-3838.