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THE
CLOSET
4/10
Le
Placard : France 2001
: Francis Veber : 87 mins
Since
every other French movie seems to feature either Gerard Depardieu or Daniel
Auteuil (or, failing that, Vincent Cassel), it’s surprising the pair haven’t
appeared on screen together since 1986’s Jean de Florette, which
ushered in the ‘Stella Artois advert’ school of depressing-but-picturesque
rural period-dramas. This time we’re in the ‘modern-day farce’ mode which
Veber has made his own – and anyone who laughed themselves into un
kink at his 1999 hit Le Diner de Cons will already be queuing
up for more of the same.
Pignon
(Auteuil) is an anonymous middle-manager of a provincial condom factory.
His private life is a disaster zone, and when he overhears he’s about
to be sacked, suicide seems a tempting option. But kindly neighbour Belone
(Michel Aumont) intervenes, and comes up with a devious strategy. Belone
was sacked from his job years ago because of his homosexuality – but reckons
times have moved on so much that if word gets around that Pignon is gay
(which he isn’t), there’s no way his bosses will give him the boot. Cue
some sitcom-level shenanigans, mostly at the expense of Pignon’s bigoted,
rugby-playing, alpha-male, office-bully colleague (Depardieu).
This
isn’t a film whose ideas should be analysed too deeply – Veber is much
more interested in setting up the next gag than bothering to explore the
pseudo-topical ideas he plays with, and his direction is strictly TV-flat.
There are some decent jokes here and there, but around the halfway mark
the script peters out to become increasingly sentimental, conventional
and predictable, right up to a ridiculously sudden fin.
7th
May 2002
(seen 26th February, Cineworld Milton Keynes)
For the original
review click here
by Neil
Young
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