Cinematical

Quick: name the last romantic comedy you saw that actually had the entire audience laughing hysterically from start to finish. You can't, can you? Unless, of course, you've recently been to a film festival and seen Laurent Tirard's hilarious film, The Story of My Life (Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinités). I truly can't recall the last time I saw a movie this witty and intelligent, and I see a lot of movies.

I went to this film with a bit of trepidation. After all, the last SIFF film I went to, Earth and Ashes, was billed by SIFF as a French comedy, and while I really enjoyed that film it was about as funny as a week spent sitting shiva. Furthermore, romantic comedies tend not to be my favorite films. American romantic comedies, written for an audience nurtured on a steady diet of mundane, regurgitated storylines, tend to be absurdly sentimental with more sap than comedy.

So, rather than have my hopes dashed, I went to the screening of The Story of My Life only cautiously optimistic it would actually be entertaining. I was somewhat heartened when I got to the theater to see a line snaking around the building. A packed house - this movie definitely had good buzz going for it. Waiting in line, I quickly realized that many of the people around me were speaking French. I took it as a good sign that there were a lot of French people waiting to see a French romantic comedy, in much the same way that when I choose an Indian restaurant, I prefer to choose one frequented by a largely Indian clientele.

From the opening scene, I knew I'd hit the rare Movie Fan Trifecta - that rare film that is simultaneously funny, original and intelligent. When a movie makes a packed crowd laugh out loud within the first three minutes, it's a good sign there's more to come, and The Story of My Life didn't disappoint me or anyone else packed into Seattle's historic Neptune Theater.

The Story of My Life is the tale of Raphael, a very successful writer of other people's books. Raphael is a ghostwriter, paid to write the autobiographies of famous people who don't have much to say. You know, when you go to the bookstore and see a book by, say, Paris Hilton, and you think to yourself, "Gee, I didn't know Paris Hilton was actually brainy enough to write a whole book!" - she isn't. Someone else with actual writing skills writes most celebrity autobiographies, and then the celebrity puts their name on it, and, as Raphael bemoans in the story, it is the celebrity, not the actual writer, who gets inundated with letters from fans grateful that the book changed their lives.

Raphael has a girlfriend, Muriel, a sharp, funny, and bitingly honest architect with the glamorous job of designing highway interchanges to make traffic patterns flow better. Muriel bosses Raphael like she harangues the beefy construction guys who work on her sites, and like them, he is mostly wise enough to just shut up and listen when she gets going. The two biggest points of contention between Raphael and Muriel are that she hates the books he ghost writes, and that he doesn't let her see who he really is.

Muriel constantly challenges Raphael's career choice, telling him he hides behind other people's stories because he doesn't have the courage to share his own - in a book or in a relationship. Raphael did actually write a novel, once, but quit writing for himself after being emotionally crippled  - in an uproarious scene that will make any writer watching the movie cringe in recognition - by an editor giving him the blisteringly critical feedback he demanded.

Raphael's latest client is Kevin, the mind-numbingly stupid, but very popular, captain of France's football team (that's soccer for us Americans). Kevin wants Raphael to write his autobiography, which he plans to wittily title "How to Score", because, you know, he "scores" both on and off the field. Kevin personifies every stereotype about famous athletes; he's handsome but dumb; and only interested in sports and sex - not necessarily in that order. In one breath he tells Raphael with touching sincerity that he stays private about his relationships with women; in the next he regales him with tales of his amazing sexual prowess.

Kevin is almost saved from being a one-dimensional buffoon by brief moments of earnest likability. Some of the films funniest moments come from Kevin's  attempts to be intellectual, misprouncing "Baudelaire" and demanding that Raphael write his autobiography in the style of "The Albatross". It won't really be copying, he tells Raphael, because they'll write it just like "The Albatross", but, you know, with different words. He even gives the literary Raphael a high-school paperback copy of Baudelaire with "all the good parts highlighted".

Raphael is used to dealing with less-than-intelligent celebrities, though, and all is well with the project until he sees a magazine cover with a picture of Kevin with his girlfriend. Raphael instantly recognizes Kevin's girlfriend as Claire, his own college crush, and all begins to unravel. As Raphel begins to pine for his old flame, he grows less interested in Muriel. Beautiful Claire is enamored of Kevin, however, and thinks the book Kevin is writing is quite brilliant, never knowing that the words she's reading are actually Raphael's.

Claire and Raphael's one date long ago ended in a disaster involving a car crash and a wild boar; they are brought back into each other's orbits by a second collision, when Raphael rear-ends Claire while driving Muriel's car. Raphael lies to Muriel about his past history with Claire, and there is a particularly hilarious scene when Muriel, not realizing the connection between Claire and Raphael, Claire and Kevin, and Kevin and Raphael, impetuously invites Claire and Kevin over for dinner. Muriel, furious with Raphael because he didn't tell her the truth about Claire, excellently berates him after the disastrous dinner party, telling him he has two of the worst qualities of men - cowardice and mediocrity. Ouch.

Kevin later confesses to Raphael he is madly in love with Claire and intends to propose to her by spiriting her away to a romantic picnic on the beach - and he wants Raphael to write the perfect proposal for him to sweep Claire off her feet. If all this sounds a bit "Cyrano de Bergerac" to you, that's okay, because in The Story of My Life, nothing is trite and overdone as it might have been.  In the hands of a lesser writer and director, this would have been just another tired, sappy, romantic comedy, but in the able hands of Tirard it becomes a comedic masterpiece; nothing plays out exactly as you think it will. There are so many funny and original moments in this film, you barely have time to catch your breath laughing at one scene (and marveling at the turn the director chose to take the plot down) before the next moment is upon you.

Even with material this excellent to work with, a lesser cast might have kept this movie from living up to its full potential. No worries, though, as Tirard has assembled a marvelous cast to bring his material to life. Eduoard Baer gives a subtly sublime performance as Raphael, and Canadian actress Marie-Josee Croze,  2003 Cannes Best Actress winner for Les Invasion Barbares (Barbarian Invasions), shines as the direct and bitingly honest Muriel. Eric Berger and Jean-Michel Lahmi, as Raphael's dueling best friends, Jeff and Max, also turn in standout performances.

If you see no other comedy this year, don't miss The Story of My Life. It is a rare film, one of the best I've seen, in or out of a film festival, and I expect it to occupy a high place on my personal list of the top ten films for this year.