“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is based on a true story. Mathieu Amalric plays Jean-Dominique Bauby, the high-profile editor of France’s Elle Magazine, who suffered a stroke when he was 43, and was left with his mind intact but physically paralyzed. He could only blink one eyelid, but how Bauby fought back is a tale of courage and accomplishment. Using the method of blinking an eyelid to choose the letter of the alphabet from those recited to him in a litany of abc’s, Bauby wrote a book about his life and it became a best-seller published shortly before Bauby died. The book is the basis for Ronald Harwood’s extraordinary screenplay.

Schnabel’s technique is very clever. When the film begins, it looks as if there is trouble with the focus. But we soon realize that we are in the mind of the patient as he surveys whatever he is able to see in emerging from a coma. The film is mostly from his perspective, making us accomplices in his struggle. Through his thoughts as well as flashbacks into his world before the stroke, we learn about his life, his ex-wife Céline, touchingly played by Emmanuelle Seigner, who devotedly looks after him, his girlfriend who can’t bring herself to see him in his state, his children and his take on all going on around him. Amazingly, there is humor, thanks to a narration of Bauby’s reactions, whether they reflect medical skepticism, anger at his television set being turned off in the middle of a soccer match or frustrating sexual observations of the pretty women attending him. The total character portrait of the victim gives the impression that he was hardly always Mr. Nice Guy.

In addition to Almaric’s fine performance in a difficult role, the acting by other cast members is exemplary, including Marie-Josée Croze as his ultra patient speech therapist and Max Von Sydow, heartbreaking in his role of Bauby’s aged father, who desperately is trying to show his love in the most difficult circumstances.