My Afternoons with Margueritte (2010)

Germain (Gerard Depardieu) is a man with very low self esteem.  As the movie unfolds we have no trouble seeing why that might be.  His mother verbally abuses him as a child, and now that Germain is a middle aged man, he lives in a trailer in his mother's backyard and their relationship has not changed a bit.  He was equally bullied by his teachers and fellow students as a child.  He cannot keep a job, he is not married, and he thinks of himself as dumb and illiterate.  The noteworthy thing is that he remained kind despite the lack of kindness afforded him.

Germain spends afternoons in the park with a group of pigeons.  He does odd jobs, but he makes time to eat his lunch outside and talk to his feathered friends.  There he meets Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus, 97 years old when the movie was filmed).  She is a bird like woman, frail and brilliant, kind and wise.  She is charmed by Germain's relationship with the pigeons that she herself has come to enjoy, and they become fast friends.  She reads to him, and he listens--it turns out that he is an auditory learner.  He loves Camus, he loves picturing the stories she tells him, and before long he loves her.  She helps him to see himself as worthy of love, and that has all sorts of beneficial down stream effects on Germain--and in the end he is able to do something meaningful for him as well.  The film is equal parts charming and sentimental.