Les Bêtises (2015)
Directed by Alice Philippon, Rose Philippon

Film Review

Les Bêtises is the first feature from sisters Rose et Alice Philippon, who make a promising directing debut with an amiable off-kilter comedy that clearly owes much to Jacques Demy and Jacques Tati, both in its kitsch design and skew-whiff humour.  Looking comfortably at home in the kind of role that Pierre Richard made his own in the 1970s (the accident-prone but loveable loser), an unusually gawky Jérémie Elkaïm livens up a comedy that might otherwise lack punch, and he soon comes to resemble Peter Sellers in Blake Edwards' The Party (1968) (sans 'birdy num nums'), creating chaos at a social gathering as he looks for his long lost mum and stumbles into an unexpected romance.  Elkaïm even gets to show off his vocal talents as he croons the song that gave the film its title.

The Philippons deserve to be credited for opting for a style of inoffensive comedy that is currently against the flow - too many of today's mainstream French comedies are tediously vulgar both in their concept and execution, lacking the sophistication that we have come to expect of French cinema.  The enterprising Philippons show that it is possible to make an audience laugh with resorting to crudity, although their film could have benefited from a little more mordancy and spontaneity.  Many of the comic situations feel forced and end all too predictably, and it's a credit to Elkaïm and his well-matched co-star Sara Giraudeau that the film is as funny as it is.  Les Bêtises flirts with mawkishness but manages to avoid getting overly sentimental and whilst the plot isn't spectacularly original the Philippons' approach is endearingly fresh and unpretentious.  For those badly in need of a change from the hollow rent-a-giggle crowdpleasers that are dominating our cinema screens at the moment, this perky little comedy is just what the doctor ordered.

Film Synopsis

François is a clumsy and fanciful thirty-year-old.  Adopted as a child, he has a burning desire to get to know his biological mother.  To that end, he inveigles his way into a party at her home, passing himself off as a servant.  This is how he comes to find himself at the beck and call of a family about which he knows nothing but which he knows is his own.