A Winged Baby Stars in François Ozon's Fable There is no indication in the early scenes of François Ozon's "Ricky" that the movie, which begins as a harshly realistic portrait of working-class parenthood in the gritty mode of a Dardenne brothers film, will turn into a magical-realist fable. Even after its metamorphosis, its notion of a baby who sprouts wings and flies is no cutesy Disney fantasy of an infant Superman confidently zooming hither and yon. Like a moth involuntarily drawn to the light, Ricky (Arthur Peyret), the child of Katie (Alexandra Lamy) and Paco (Sergi Lopez), both highly stressed assembly-line workers in a French cosmetics factory, bumps into walls, hurls himself at windows and is in continual peril. Even for a filmmaker as gifted as Mr. Ozon ("Swimming Pool," "Under the Sand"), the transition from one style to another a third of the way into the movie is almost impossible to carry off seamlessly. But that may be the point. Even in the happiest families, parenthood, for all its joys, brings no end of anxiety and unwelcome surprise. No child is exactly like any other. For all the rules that have been laid down, child rearing is still largely a matter of playing it by ear. As the movie, freely adapted from "Moth," a short story by Rose Tremain, set in an American trailer park, rubs its genres together, it creates a sense of discomfort. In the first part, the equilibrium of a family of two - Katie and her 7-year-old daughter, Lisa (Mélusine Mayance) - is disturbed when Paco, the gruff, good-hearted Spaniard with whom Katie first hooks up in a factory lavatory, moves into their apartment in a housing project. The movie becomes a microscopic examination of shifting family dynamics with the birth of their child, Ricky, a noisy, demanding boy who takes attention away from Lisa, who in one scene is shown secretly clipping his wings. The camera stares fixedly at the visceral side of infancy, the baby suckling and soiling himself, the biological mother-child bond, the father's sleeplessness and irritation, the sibling rivalry and the underlying parental fears for the baby's safety. Where most films about children coo, giggle and turn misty-eyed, "Ricky" is pointedly unromantic. The first signs of the wings that will sprout from Ricky's shoulder blades are what appear to be bruises, which Katie notices after leaving him in Paco's care. Your heart sinks when she accuses him of abusing the child; he denies it and stalks out of the house. The wings that grow are not snowy angel's wings but birdlike appendages, much like the bony chicken wings that are Lisa's favorite part of the fowl when a roast is served. After Ricky is discovered perched high on a shelf, a blanket is put over his crib to keep him safe. But his drive to be airborne is unstoppable. He becomes a public curiosity after Katie takes him to a supermarket, and he breaks free to career wildly among the fluorescent lights while the shoppers ogle him, and police officers, firefighters and television crews rush to the scene. At this point "Ricky" chooses to play down the unending media frenzy that would greet the phenomenon of a flying baby. One concerned, not terribly aggressive doctor who insists that Ricky needs special care is allowed to stand for the medical profession. The deeper "Ricky" plunges into allegory, the shakier its grasp of the material. Paco is eager to exploit Ricky for money and achieve a better life for the family. But having brought up the commercialization of Ricky, the movie abandons the issue. When Ricky flies away after Katie accidentally lets go of the string holding him during an outdoor television interview, the film disappears with him. Directed by François Ozon; written by Mr. Ozon, based on "Moth," a short story by Rose Tremain; director of photography, Jeanne Lapoirie; edited by Muriel Breton; music by Philippe Rombi; produced by Claudie Ossard and Chris Bolzli; released by IFC Films. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. WITH: Alexandra Lamy (Katie), Sergi Lopez (Paco), Mélusine Mayance (Lisa), Arthur Peyret (Ricky), André Wilms (Doctor) and Jean-Claude Bolle-Reddat (Journalist).