Je règle mon pas sur le pas de mon père (1999) - film review

When his mother dies, Sauveur, a young trainee chef, finally discovers the identity of his absent father.  He tries to make contact with the man to whom he owes his existence, but the latter evidently has no interest in meeting the fruit of his youthful misadventures.  When they meet, Sauveur decides to keep his identity to himself, for a while.  His father turns out to be Bertrand, a solitary misanthrope who scrapes a living as a petty confidence trickster.  Although disillusioned by what he sees, Sauveur finds himself drawn into his father’s life and allows himself to be an accomplice in his next outrageous scam...

Rémi Waterhouse had established himself as a successful screenwriter (winning a César for his script work on Patrice Leconte’s 1996 film Ridicule ) before directing this, his first film.  Je règle mon pas sur le pas de mon père marks a promising directorial debut for Waterhouse, the kind of sophisticated French comedy that is generally well-received both in France and in art house cinemas abroad.  Adopting the format of the road movie, an increasingly important genre in French cinema over the last decade, the film centres around the relationship of an unlikely father and son.  The film’s treatment of the subject is fresh and amusing, but not wholly satisfying – despite some noteworthy performances.

The film’s main protagonists are played by Jean Yanne (the father) and Guillaume Canet (the son).  This is inspired casting and the main reason the film works as well as it does is down to the contributions from these two talented actors – most specifically, their frictional on-screen rapport.  You are reminded of other great double acts (oddly, Starsky and Hutch) as the two characters gradually overcome their mutual ambivalence for one another and become friends and then partners in crime.  Yanne and Canet work well together, and are certainly helped by a well-honed script which includes some brilliant dead-pan humour.

The film becomes markedly less impressive as the narrative turns away from the relationship between the two main characters and instead focuses on a rather complex criminal exploit.  The ease with which Sauveur adopts a life of crime is as unconvincing as Bertrand’s willingness to go into partnership with him.  Whilst Laurence Côte and Yves Rénier are excellent in their supporting roles, their characters feel strangely superfluous, adding to the impression that Waterhouse has welded together the front half and back half of two very different films instead of making a single, coherent work.

Although the film is badly marred by its last fifteen minutes or so (which is so clearly the wrong ending to this film), Je règle mon pas sur le pas de mon père is nonetheless an engaging and enjoyable little film.

© James Travers 2004

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