Les Infidèles (2012)
Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé

Film Review

Within days of his trip to Hollywood to collect the Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Artist, Jean Dujardin was back on the big screen in French cinemas, giving what is the histrionic equivalent of the two-fingered salute to movie star convention as he takes on his most provocative role to date.  A raunchy sex comedy conceived in the worst possible taste (by Dujardin, as it so happens), Les Infidèles is a conscious attempt to counter the wave of political correctness that is presently sweeping over cinema (not only in France) and threatening the integrity of our most expressive art form.  With its totally uninhibited exploration of modern day male sexuality, the film risked provoking national censure and indeed one sequence (referring to the attack on the Twin Towers in September 2001) had to be excised immediately prior to its release on grounds of bad taste.  The original poster for the film (which showed a suitably smug Dujardin holding the spread-eagled legs of a woman) had to be withdrawn when the French advertising regulator, the ARPP, received numerous complaints of sexism.  However, despite this initial furore and a mixed critical reaction, the film has proven to be a hit at the French box office and looks like being one of the biggest successes of the year.  They're a filthy minded lot, the French...

Inspired by those bawdy Italian sex comedies of the 1960s, in particular Dino Risi's I Mostri (1963), Les Infidèles is an anthology film comprising several short films that are linked only by their common theme, male infidelity.  As you might expect, the quality of the segments varies enormously (each was written and directed by a different team, although some of the actors, notably Dujardin, appear in several of them).  Whilst some - such as La Bonne conscience, directed by Michel Hazanavicius (the Oscar winning director of The Artist) - have some meat to them and are genuinely funny, others - like Eric Lartigau's Lolita - are lightweight and out-stay their welcome by several tedious minutes.  When you consider that one segment (directed by Jan Kounen) ended up on the cutting room floor because it was felt to be out of place, it is surprising that more effort was not exercised in ensuring the short films fitted together better.  The principal failing of Les Infidèles is not that it is aggressively outré (although it does get uncomfortably close to the knuckle in a few places, if you'll pardon the expression), but that it is painfully uneven and so lacking in depth and coherence that you wonder if you will ever get to the end of it.

Once again, Jean Dujardin revels in another of his stereotypical 'bad man' roles, the part for which he is best-suited, evidenced by his enjoyable portrayal of an über-chauvinistic spy in Hazanavicius's OSS 117 films.  It is nice to see that Dujardin shows absolutely no sign (yet) of being spoiled by critical acclaim and international stardom, and has no qualms over taking on the kind of roles that most Hollywood stars would not even consider.  Les Infidèles shows Dujardin at his most vomit-inducingly unsympathetic; his character is pure alpha male in concentrated form, an unimaginably narcissistic egoist whose attitudes towards women and obsession with sex make him look like a cross between a Neanderthal and Silvio Berlusconi on steroids.  The more repulsive Dujardin's character gets, the funnier he is, and it's a great shame that the prologue and epilogue (the most considered and truthful parts of the film) could not have been extended into a full-length film and the intermediate segments jettisoned.  In these two sequences Dujardin is perfectly partnered with Gilles Lellouche, another fine actor with a natural comic flair.  The Dujardin-Lellouche double act is the one thing that saves the film and gives it not only a semblance of structure but also the biggest surprise of all, with Dujardin and Lellouche taking male bonding to its ultimate extreme.

Whilst Les Infidèles certainly has honorable intentions - political correctness is the bane of our era and deserves to be challenged at every opportunity - it does itself few favours by relying so heavily on crude stereotypes and situation that are so extreme and caricatured that they are difficult to relate to.  The only part of the film that tries to go beyond the superficial (the segment titled La Question, in which Dujardin has his fidelity probed by (of all people) his off-screen wife Alexandra Lamy) falls flat because it lacks the directorial verve of the segments that preceded it.  Anyone who can see the funny side of penis captivus and a dog happily chewing on a used condom is unlikely to be bothered by the film's flagrant lack of substance, but for those expecting a slightly more incisive commentary on male sexual attitudes in the 21st century the film can only be a disappointment.  Les Infidèles is daring, provocative and, in the main, disgustingly entertaining, but it is ultimately shallow and misses its target by several kilometres.

Film Synopsis

What makes a man become unfaithful to his wife?  This is a question that has vexed philosophers and talk show hosts for centuries, and it is one that two macho 30-something Frenchmen, Fred and Greg, really would like to have an answer to, because infidelity is something they are both desperately addicted to.  These two alpha males are married and yet neither can resist the urge to go out in the evening, skulking around nightclubs in the hope of picking up a suitably willing bit of fluff to round the night off with.  It's not as if either of the men has anything to complain about in his wife.

Two-timing just seems to be part of their DNA.  There's something in the Y chromosome that compels a man to cheat on his other half as regularly as he can.  Like peeing all over the toilet floor, forgetting wedding anniversaries and getting paralytically drunk every Friday night, it's just something that men do.  Several tragicomic scenarios that explore man's unrelenting need for infidelity are presented, but Fred and Greg are still none the wiser.  Ignoring their wives' protests, they jet off to Las Vegas to grab as much fun as they can.  Determined to have a good time, Fred and his buddy are about to cheat on their wives in a way they had never thought possible...