What's a religious realist?

an oxymoron :)

While I definitely agree it's odd to pair those words together to describe a person, I think they (the writers of the plot outline) mean to say is that she is religious and she is realistic (as in the opposite of idealistic/romantic, she probably verges on cynical) - two separate adjectives. He - the romantic atheist - is a romantic at heart and is an atheist. Just a fancy way of saying that they're opposites.

Note: I haven't seen the movie, I am just guessing at the characteristics of the main characters based on the IMDb plot outline.

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Someone who believes in god but hates other things like fantasy stories, fairy tales. Probably only enjoys non-fiction. Does not dream or allow their imagination to wander. They compartmentalize their rationality and religious views. Now, call it oxymoronic, but it is a very real thing. I know people in real life for whom religious realist is the perfect description.

Speaking as someone who has seen this film, I am inclined to say that "religious realist" means that the plot summary writer has not. My guess is that "realist" was supposed to contrast with "romantic" and that "religious" was supposed to contrast with "atheist." All this was to create the idea that this was the story of opposites attracting, which does not really describe the film.

There are people like the ones that a13815 described, but Elise is not one of them. I would describe her as more spiritual than religious. She most decidedly allowed her imagination to wander and took comfort in fantasy. Didier was an atheist and very anti-spiritual. In this regard, he was by far the more realist character. Other than this, the biggest difference between them was that Elise was covered in tattoos, whereas Didier did not see the point. Both were romantic, although Didier might have been slightly more romantic. Didier was more prone to ranting, but Elise was hardly a silent character.

It's just a poorly written plot description having no basis on the movie at all.

Their "differences" spring up out of nowhere in only two or three key scenes. It is not the subject of the movie or their romance. Maybe it could have been if the director wasn't jerking us around the whole time, pulling the rug out from underneath us and his characters for apparently no other reason but to create confusion.

Scenes would start and then cut to the middle of another sequence some time later or before the one we're in, and then we double back or forward to where we were originally, wondering why the heck that is.

It gets in the way of us getting to know these people and the rhythm of their lives, and how they think and feel about things.

When religion comes up the first time, having to do with an explanation about what becomes of a bird after it dies, this couple would have been together for what, 6 years or so at that point? Wouldn't they have discussed how they were going to bring up their child and what those answers would be?

Didier seems made to behave insensitively because of the requirement of the screenplay. He could have laid out several avenues for her, but no, he just callously tries to take the bird while telling her he's going to throw it in the garbage because it's dead.

Gee, thanks dad.

No parent would've reacted the way Didier was made to act in that scene. In fact, much of his behavior was made to be very erratic, or maybe it only seemed that way because there was never any follow-through with character development. Just when one scene gets going, we go somewhere else and then back again as I said.

There are no such things as Religious and Realistic. It is jsut like saying I believe in the Tooth Fairy and I am realistic...

"The only thing a gun does is focusing an explosion in one direction"

In the plot summary "religious realist" is contrasted to "romantic atheist", which should give the answer, or some potential ones. At first blush you could say it's simply a twisty and seemingly oxymoronic way of framing a clash of lovers along two dimensions. Also you could say that religious and romantic are non-modifying adjectives; Elise is a realist by character who happens to be religious, Didier is an atheist who happens to be romantic. I don't think the synopsis writer has made a mistake or is lazy.

I think it's more likely that Elise feels that religion is, not necessarily true, but necessary, particularly given the ubiquity of grief and disappointment, and that people need religion to make it through life; hence, a "religious realist". She never says that their daughter has or will return as a bird, but that she will believe that if she wants and resents Didier trying to make her not, or mock her for maybe doing so. She seems more temperamentally soured on life than Didier. Didier is more optimistic about what earthly life has to offer; he is romantic about music and America, for example, in a way Elise is not. Although I don't quite know what to make of Elise changing her name to Alabama. Maybe a last ditch attempt to try life on Didier's terms.

Didier could be said to be a "romantic atheist" insofar as he sees atheism as a liberating and inherently progressive thing, and religion as a shackle, even though his anti-religious rants are clearly meant to be understood as a reaction to the death of his child.