“Nobody’s Hero,” the new film from French director Alain Guiraudie, might be more accurately titled “Nobody’s Idea of a Hero,” if only because our protagonist, by the time the final credits are rolling, turns out to be something of a hero. 

Médéric (Jean-Charles Clichet) is stunningly ordinary. He’s a single man nearing 40 who lives at Clermont-Ferrand, a city about a two-hour drive from Lyon that has the distinction of being a Unesco “tectonic hotspot.” Given the events that come to occupy Médéric’s life, some analogy to fireworks is warranted. 

What Médéric does for a job isn’t clear. He lives in a modest apartment in a modest building populated with a motley array of tenants — an assimilated, non-practicing Muslim, a pot-bellied gun enthusiast, and a prim woman entering middle-age, all of whom are kind but disagreeable. Médéric, beginning to bald and going to pudge, is of a piece with his neighbors in being an admixture of narrow self-interest and hesitant altruism.  

Médéric does take care of himself to some extent, being an inveterate jogger. When we first meet him, he’s donned running gear and left his home to begin his workout. Directly across the street is a prostitute working her turf, a woman who won’t see 50 again. After engaging in some hesitant back-and-forth, Médéric approaches Isadora (Noémie Lvovsky) and engages in sweet talk along the lines of, “I want to hit on you normally. No charge.” When Isadora asks why Médéric shouldn’t have to pay, he states his opposition to prostitution. “Buying someone’s body isn’t cool,” he explains in all earnestness.

Clearly, Médéric is no regular John. Isadora’s cynicism turns to bemusement and, eventually, curiosity. After Médéric promises sexual pleasures beyond the scope of her regular clientele, Isadora takes his number, climbs into a taxi, and, off camera, gives him a ring. An after-hours meeting is arranged at the Hotel du France. As far as fleabags go, it’s fairly homey, being run by the convivial Monsieur Renard (Yves-Robert Viala) and his middle-school intern Charlene (Miveck Packa). There’s nothing these two haven’t seen.

Médéric enters the hotel room at the appointed hour and spies Isadora reclining on the bed in a fetching scarlet robe. Ever the smooth operator, Médéric first confirms that he won’t be invoiced at the end of the evening. He subsequently disrobes in a manner that is as clumsy as it is frantic, and begins to favor Isadora with his attentions. Her response is hyperbolic — Médéric pauses during his ministrations and tells her not to overdo it — but Isadora isn’t acting. She encourages her lover, reiterating most emphatically that there will, in fact, be no charge this evening.

All the same, Isadora becomes distracted by a news report on the television that has been blaring all the while. A terrible event has occurred nearby, possibly a terrorist attack. If that weren’t enough to put a crimp in Médéric’s evening, Isadora’s husband Gerard (Renaud Rutten) barges in and puts an abrupt halt to the amour in progress. He’s eager to get his wife home safe-and-sound. Médéric is chagrined. “Life,” he tells Isadora and Gerard with consummate self-absorption, “doesn’t have to stop for a terrorist attack.”

And so begins the increasingly discombobulated adventures of Médéric that will come to include an encounter with a homeless youth who may be a member of Isis; a new boss eager for erotic misadventures; unruly love forever in threat of interruption; and the aforementioned neighbors who come more to the fore as “Nobody’s Hero” stumbles along its merry way. The more Mr. Guiraudie’s movie becomes an ensemble effort, the better it is, bringing to mind estimable forebears like “Rules of the Game,” “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” and “Whiskey Galore!”

Mr. Guiraudie has done something special here, deftly navigating, as he does, contemporary political quandaries and contradictions that are eternally inherent to the human animal. He has a flair for knowing when drollery should cede to the farcical and then loop back again. The cast evinces its faith in Mr. Guiraudie’s thumb-in-the-eye buffoonery with consummate enthusiasm. Certainly, Ms. Lvovsky and Mr. Clichet deserve some kind of accolade for retaining a level of honest eroticism in their sex scenes notwithstanding all of the requisite fumbling, bumbling, and mortification. 

“Nobody’s Hero” begins in obviousness and outrage and evolves into something humble and human. The trajectory is bumpy, but the trip is exemplary.