La Confiance règne (2004)

La Confiance règne is a French film comedy first released in 2004, directed by Étienne Chatiliez.  The film stars Cécile De France, Vincent Lindon, Eric Berger, Anne Brochet and Martine Chevallier.  Our overall rating for this film is: mediocre.


Chrystèle and Christophe are two of a kind.  Uneducated and lacking the tiniest vestige of scruple, each had made a habit of fleecing the suckers who employ them as domestic servants.   After their chance meeting and the inevitable frolic in the hotel bedroom, they decide to work together, passing themselves off as a married couple.  Their next employers, a retired bourgeois couple, prove to be a gold mine, and they are soon on the run again with their ill-gotten gains.  But how long will their luck hold out for...?

With his fifth film, Étienne Chatiliez revisits the rich-poor divide which was the subject of his successful debut feature, La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille (1988).  Unfortunately, on this occasion Chatiliez goes too far in the direction of caricature and seems to have difficulty stretching what, on paper, must have seemed like an amusing concept to fill the space of a full length film.

La Confiance règne fails on several counts.  Even if you make allowance for its extreme vulgarity (any film that resorts to fart jokes for laughs is unlikely to go down well) and crass characterisation of the kind you would find in a children’s comic, it is hard to forgive its repetitious and poorly constructed narrative, which bounces about like a hyperactive kangaroo on steroids.  Cécile De France is about the only thing going for this film, and the fact that she is unrecognisable testifies to her extraordinary talent as an actress, even if she is completely wasted in this misfired venture.

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