With "L'Auberge Espagnole," director Cedric Klapisch introduced audiences to a collection of European twentysomethings — seven people from six countries — sharing a grubby apartment in Barcelona. When the film hit American screens in 2003, it captured the optimism and confusion felt by young people faced with an unprecedented wealth of choices. National borders were fading, social mores were shifting and a pan-European sensibility was blossoming.

We last saw Parisian exchange student Xavier (Romain Duris) when he left Spain, returned to Paris and chose to shrug off the perceived yoke of a bourgeois office job to become a writer. Five years later, in "Russian Dolls," Xavier's still in Paris, bluffing his way into writing jobs, living rent-free with former roommate Isabelle (Cécile de France), grudgingly baby-sitting the son of ex-girlfriend Martine (Audrey Tautou) and blithely sailing through short-term relationships.

If "L'Auberge" was about self-discovery, "Russian" is more about love, Klapisch says. He describes his new film as "more like a portrait of what love is when you're 30 years old. You haven't just gone out with one person, you're more experienced." And that, he says, may be what gives the game of love its modern challenges: "I think today, love is not the same as before, like in 'Don Juan,' when you had to deal with religion, with parents. (Young people now) can really decide what they want sexually, what they want emotionally. I think our contemporary problems come from all the freedom that comes from being single, wanting to have an honest life, an honest love life. ... they're going out and being really sincere."

That sincerity necessarily goes a step further when it comes to Klapisch's scripts: "I think it's true that you go through experiences where you fall in love, and you learn things from your experiences, and then you can write about them."

And what's more sincere than basing a character on yourself?

There's the scene, for instance, in which Xavier and his then-girlfriend Neus (Irene Montalà) get in a fight. She runs out of the apartment, he runs after her, and they're both nude. "That happened to me once in Paris when I was 20 years old," Klapisch confesses.

Though Klapisch says he writes with sincerity, being 30 doesn't always mean being honest. "Thirty was the start of my professional career," says Klapisch, 44.

Like Xavier, who lies to land jobs and placate family and friends, Klapisch admits, "I lied a lot. ... Being 30 is really about being able to deal with that lie. Now I can be more sincere about my flaws and problems," he says.