“The Notebook (Le Grand Cahier)” — the parenthetical French title may be there to distinguish it from that movie with Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams — falls somewhere in the middle. Directed by Janos Szasz, it is based on a widely admired novel, written in French, by the Hungarian-born writer Agota Kristof. The book, which has been previously adapted for the stage, and which counts among its fans the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, is a flinty parable of brutality and resilience, in which two nameless twins wait out the Second World War at their wicked-witch-like grandma’s house in rural Hungary. The film is mostly faithful to the details and the mood of the book, but it is also muddled and sensationalistic, and superficially shocking rather than profoundly provocative...