Barnie et ses petites contrariétés (2001)
Directed by Bruno Chiche

Film Review

Mirth on the Orient Express?  It may not be the most original or intelligent of French comedies in recent years, but it's hard to deny that Barnie et ses petites contrariétés is a very funny film, an exuberant bedroom farce which just about manages to avoid tipping over into crass silliness.  It's a first full length film for Bruno Chiche, although he has made a number of short films over the past decade.  Chiche's inexperience is apparent not just in the quality of the acting - which is wildly over-the-top in places - but also in the film's uneven pace and tone.  Despite its obvious faults, this is a film that is genuinely entertaining and, in a few places, laugh-out-loud funny.  Whilst it's a shame to see so many big name actors failing to live up to their reputation (Marie Gillain and Serge Hazanavicius are pretty well wasted in this film), it's a treat to see Fabrice Luchini playing straight Mr Bean-style farce instead of the intellectual kind of comedy for which he is better known.  It's not clever, it's not particularly memorable, but it is a wonderfully diverting piece of fun.

Film Synopsis

Barnard Barnich, known to all as Barnie, is a successful 40-something businessman who works in London but lives in Calais with his devoted wife Lucy.  Even though he is happily married, Barnie also has a mistress, Margot, and a gay lover, Mark, so juggling the demands of work and his increasingly complicated love life is a full-time preoccupation.  Barnie has so far managed to keep his wife from finding out about his extra-marital escapades, but his cheating finally catches up with him on his birthday when he receives the same gift from each of his three partners - a ticket for a romantic holiday in Venice on the Orient Express. 

Knowing that he can accept only one of the three tickets, Barnie decides to keep the one his wife sent him and return the others, with apologies, to his two lovers.  This way at least he can preserve his marriage and avoid an acrimonious and costly divorce.  Unfortunately, in his haste, Barnie mixes up his replies to Mark and Margot, so they each get the other's letter by mistake.  Naturally, these two are infuriated to learn that they both have a rival, so infuriated in fact that their only thought is to head over to Barnie's home in France and give him a piece of their mind.  As luck would have it, they arrive at just the moment when Barnie learns that his wife has been carrying on an affair of her own.  It seems that whilst he was away in London, amusing himself with Mark and Margot, Lucy has been getting on very intimate terms with one of her daughter's schoolteachers...