Basically the storyline is as hackneyed as could be: wealthy exec (Daniel Auteuil) gets caught in the company of a supermodel (Alice Taglioni) who is not his wife (Kristin Scott Thomas). To avoid scandal and the possibility of divorce and losing half his fortune, Auteuil and his lawyer concoct a scheme whereby an innocent bystander (Gad Elmaleh) who happened to be very close when the incriminating pictures were snapped will be paid to pretend that Taglioni is his girlfriend and living with him. Alas this complicates life for Elmaleh, a working-class valet, in his pursuit of his own true love, a struggling book store owner played by Virginie Ledoyen. And Taglioni gets more and more angry at Auteuil for dicking her around, promising to divorce his wife but clearly not wanting to.
This plot could come out of a screwball comedy from the 30s, Three's Company, any number of French or Italian sex farces of the 60s-70s, etc. That alone isn't necessarily a problem, but when you've got a really ordinary, simple storyline you've really got to work to make it interesting -- and alas writer/director Francis Veber doesn't do anything with the material that isn't highly predictable and dull. Auteuil spends much of his time mugging or getting over-the-top angry and becomes more and more of a scumbag as the film goes on - want to guess whether he and Taglioni end up together at the end? Scott Thomas is one-note severe, calculating, nasty - it's clear from the first that she and Auteuil deserve each other. Our lowly valet manages to prove his love for his bookstore owner ideal, the supermodel turns out to be the nicest and most mature person of the whole bunch, those that deserve to be happy are, etc.
There were some nice touches here and there - the valet's father is chronically sick, but the doctor who attends him is even sicker and the father ends up attending to his physician more than the reverse; I kind of liked the jag-off cell phone salesman who is also pursuing Ledoyen, at least at first, he's so over-the-top smarmy. But mostly this was by-the-numbers rom-com, and with a PG-13 rating it doesn't even get to have any sex to speak of - very mild and lacking in juice all around. And what was with the extremely bright, overlit cinematography throughout? It's Paris, not Cannes.
At least it was short.
This plot could come out of a screwball comedy from the 30s, Three's Company, any number of French or Italian sex farces of the 60s-70s, etc. That alone isn't necessarily a problem, but when you've got a really ordinary, simple storyline you've really got to work to make it interesting -- and alas writer/director Francis Veber doesn't do anything with the material that isn't highly predictable and dull. Auteuil spends much of his time mugging or getting over-the-top angry and becomes more and more of a scumbag as the film goes on - want to guess whether he and Taglioni end up together at the end? Scott Thomas is one-note severe, calculating, nasty - it's clear from the first that she and Auteuil deserve each other. Our lowly valet manages to prove his love for his bookstore owner ideal, the supermodel turns out to be the nicest and most mature person of the whole bunch, those that deserve to be happy are, etc.
There were some nice touches here and there - the valet's father is chronically sick, but the doctor who attends him is even sicker and the father ends up attending to his physician more than the reverse; I kind of liked the jag-off cell phone salesman who is also pursuing Ledoyen, at least at first, he's so over-the-top smarmy. But mostly this was by-the-numbers rom-com, and with a PG-13 rating it doesn't even get to have any sex to speak of - very mild and lacking in juice all around. And what was with the extremely bright, overlit cinematography throughout? It's Paris, not Cannes.
At least it was short.