L’Autre Dumas (2010)

L’Autre Dumas is a French romantic film drama first released in 2010, directed by Safy Nebbou.  The film is based on a play by Cyril Gely and Eric Rouquette and stars Gérard Depardieu, Benoît Poelvoorde, Dominique Blanc, Mélanie Thierry and Catherine Mouchet.  Our overall rating for this film is: good.


Everyone knows that Alexandre Dumas is one of the giants of French literature, the author of such works as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo.   What is less well-known is that many of Dumas’ great novels were written in collaboration with another writer, Auguste Maquet.  To preserve his anonymity and allow Dumas to take the full credit for their work, Maquet was given a substantial fee.  When Dumas is at the height of his literary success, Maquet decides to pass himself off as his illustrious partner, so that he can seduce Charlotte, one of Dumas’ most fervent admirers.  As the 1848 revolution gets underway in Paris, Dumas and his ghost are about to come to blows...

A month before Roman Polanski’s The Ghost was released in the spring of 2010, French cinema audiences were acquainted with an even less probable scenario about a ghost writer and his ruthless employer.  Whilst Polanski’s film is entirely fictional (although obviously inspired by real events), L’Autre Dumas is based on fact, the fruitful but fraught relationship between the legendary French writer Alexandre Dumas and his hired hand Auguste Maquet.  It is now recognised that Maquet did the lion’s share of the work on around 20 novels which he and Dumas collaborated on from 1844 to 1851, not only doing all of the research (in meticulous detail) but also developing story ideas and sketching out the initial drafts.  No one knows for certain how much of his novels Dumas actually wrote, but we do know that he took 100 per cent of the credit and earned a ticket to the Panthéon whilst his ghost writer remained in comparative obscurity, both in life and in death.  L’Autre Dumas offers an insight into one of the most fascinating literary partnerships in history, but it falls short of its potential and raises far more questions than it answers.

The film is a lavish production, based on the stage play Signé Dumas by Cyril Gely and Eric Rouquette, first performed in 2003. It is directed by Safy Nebbou, whose previous film, the intense psychological thriller L’Empreinte de l’ange, has been widely acclaimed.  The inspired touch that Nebbou showed on his last film is somewhat lacking in this, more extravagant period piece.  Apart from one or two well-staged set-pieces, Nebbou’s mise-en-scène is as lacklustre as most of the screenwriting, and this is the main reason why L’Autre Dumas fails to be much more than a mildly entertaining divertissement.  Anyone expecting an intelligently scripted drama which attempts to unpick Dumas’ relationship with his ghost writer risks being seriously disappointed by this film.

The film’s strength lies principally in its casting of Gérard Depardieu and Benoît Poelvoorde in the roles of Dumas and Maquet.  Although Depardieu’s casting was controversial (the fact that Dumas was the grandson of a Haitian slave led many commentators to bemoan the fact that the part was not given to a black actor), it is hard to imagine any other French thesp fitting the part as well.  The role calls for a larger than life personality, and that is precisely what Depardieu delivers.  Poelvoorde is a more surprising choice for the part of Maquet, but his is by far the better performance.  Whereas Depardieu appears happy to play the roaring caricature that has been scripted for him, Poelvoorde makes an attempt to portray Maquet as a real person.  The supporting contributions should not be overlooked - Dominique Blanc and Mélanie Thierry bring not only a touch of class to the film, but also give it most of its emotional punch.  As laudable as the performances are, however, you are left wondering just what kept Dumas and Maquet together for so long and just how they were able to produce so many literary masterpieces.  Rather than give any deep insight into two very complex characters, the film is content merely to skate on the surface and weave a rather insipid comedy about mistaken identity and professional jealousy.  Ultimately, the film is a minor disappointment, delivering far less than it promises, but the meaty performances from an exceptional cast make it worth the effort.

© James Travers 2011

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