Tenue correcte exigée (1997) - film review

Richard Poulenc faces a nine month prison sentence for social security fraud unless he can obtain a signature from his former wife, Catherine, testifying that they have been separated for ten years.  Since their break up, Catherine has started a new life in America, becoming a high profile journalist.  When he learns that his ex-wife has returned to France for a conference, Richard tries to force his way into the Paris hotel where she is staying.  Catherine refuses to help Richard, because she has re-married, and her husband is an American governor who is running for the presidency.  Meanwhile, the owner of the hotel is forewarned of a visit from the tax inspector.  Anxious that his prostitution racket will be uncovered, the hotel manager throws his troupe of prostitutes out onto the street. One of these, Lucie, refuses to go without payment.  With Lucie’s help, Richard manages to enter the hotel for a second time.  On this occasion, he is mistaken for the dreaded tax inspector and is given the V.I.P. treatment…

Director Philippe Lioret followed his first film – the black comedy-drama Tombés du ciel (1993) – with this good-humoured farce, continuing French cinema’s longstanding flair for all things vaudeville.  The characters, situations and dialogue are all typical of an unbridled French farce, making this an entertaining, albeit slightly messy, piece of Gallic fun.

Lioret is well-served by a truly talented cast which is headed by Jacques Gamblin and Elsa Zylberstein (who are better known for serious roles than comedy).  The script is admittedly weak in a few places (the Audi–Audit misunderstanding is just plain silly), but this is more than made up for by the colourful contributions from the cast.  Jean Yanne is simply brilliant as the paranoid hotel manager, and has a memorable double act with Daniel Prévost.   Zinedine Soualem also deserves special mention as an unfortunate taxi cab driver with a good line in sarcasm.

The film is weakest when it tries to be cleverest.  Occasionally, you sense that Lioret is struggling to make some bold political points, but nowhere does this seem to work.  The characters are too stereotypical, too cartoon-like, for this ever to be anything more than a broad-brush kind of satire.  Despite this, and despite having one or two sub-plots too many, Tenue correcte exigée still manages to be an effective – and occasionally hilarious – piece of film comedy.

© James Travers 2005

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?