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.
© James Travers 2015
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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.
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.