Gillian Williams as Abby, Jacob H Knoll as Zack. Photo by Teddy Wolff.

The famed city of Paris, the setting of countless sappy romance movies, novels and songs, does a notoriously bad job of living up to its fairy tale reputation. In fact, starry-eyed tourists visit the city at the risk of developing clinical, crippling disillusionment.

Amy Herzog’s Belleville, currently playing at Studio Theatre, drops two American ex-pats into the eponymous Parisian neighborhood and charts the slow, suspenseful decline of their romantic dreams into a nightmare. David Muse’s direction strives to bring the uncomfortable story of a marriage falling apart with unflinching (but often flinch-inducing) realism but doesn’t fully overcome Herzog’s script, written with characters and circumstances that don’t ring quite true.

The married couple at the heart of Belleville live ostensibly perfect lives. Zack (Jacob H. Knoll) has a prestigious job fighting pediatric AIDS with Doctors Without Borders, and Abby (Gillian Williams) is living in her dream city. But their distress is apparent from the first scene of the play, when Abby comes home early to find Zack, not at work as expected but, as Zack puts it later, with his computer. Rather than confronting Zack about what is really worrying her — finding him unexpectedly home from work — she chooses to kick off an awkward passive aggressive conversation about masturbation that is just a flimsy pretense for the couple to trade jabs about their various grievances.

This makes for a first act that is difficult to watch. Beyond the discomfort of watching two lovers bicker, the act is guilty of clunky dialogue — Herzog here tries to recreate a Millennial generation vibe with plenty of “ums,” ellipses and corny pet names (the groan-inducing “homie”)— that the actors do their best with but never quite make convincing. As the play goes on and the couple’s unspoken troubles get dragged unwillingly into the light, the production reveals itself as the gripping and suspenseful drama that it really is. Although Abby and Zack scramble to maintain their calm facades, Williams and Knoll exude a thrilling energy as their characters’ defenses fail and the suspense rises. The tension is so thick by the midpoint of the play that when a large, gleaming knife is brought out from the kitchen it’s impossible not to sense a looming dread.

The impending danger on stage is made all the more real by Deborah Booth’s set; Abby’s and Zack’s apartment is recreated with small and precise detail that goes well beyond the minimal verisimilitude needed for suspension of disbelief. These characters exist in a world with running water, functioning cell phones, and convincing cycles of pinkish dawn and streetlamp-glow night lighting that realistically flows into their apartment via Peter West’s light design. The world feels bracingly real. When Abby collides violently with a coffee table, it takes actual effort to remind yourself that it is all part of the play. Once the knife is inevitably brandished with a greater purpose than serving bread it takes an effort not to look away from the stage, especially for the squeamish.

A few flaws do pierce this realism, even after the play has moved on from an uneven opening. Zack’s twitchy, desperate search for pot plays out like he’s a junkie from an after school special. And the final scene of the play, an almost-silent, slow denouement feels like a contrived cathartic moment for the audience to process the climax rather than adding any substance to the story. Still, a moment to breathe before the curtain call is absolutely required. Belleville is a suspenseful and wild emotional ride, and one well worth seeing. For the paranoid, though, probably best not to take your significant other along with you.

Belleville runs at Studio Theatre through October 12. Tickets, $44-88, are available here.