francis veber Tagged Articles at Cinematical

*A guest review today, from Nick Schager, of Slant Magazine


There's nothing new about the films of Francis Veber, director of The Dinner Game and The Closet. Decidedly old-school throwbacks to both classic Hollywood comedies of manners and bouncy French farces, the filmmaker's hits are pure superficiality, their intricate plot machinations and oversized performances containing barely a whiff of emotional or intellectual depth. Veber isn't about character development or thematic subtext; he's about light, frolicsome fun, the kind in which myriad strangers find themselves hopelessly embroiled in outrageous circumstances, and then stumble and bumble their way out of trouble and into love. With The Valet, he continues his career dedication to fanciful humor, spinning a tangled yarn about a restaurant valet, his small business-owning love interest, a corporate bigwig, his cold, greedy wife, and his supermodel lover, all of whom find their fates intertwined after a tabloid photographer takes an ill-advised picture.

The snapshot in question is of CEO Pierre Levasseur (Daniel Auteuil) and his gorgeous celebrity mistress Elena (Alice Taglioni), and it threatens to ruin Levasseur if it leads to divorce, as his wife Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas, speaking seamless French) is the majority shareholder in his companies. As a random passerby is also featured in the photo, Pierre claims that Elena was actually with this stranger, a cover story that forces Pierre to find the man and pay him to pose as Elena's lover for the paparazzi hordes. After an amazingly quick search, the innocent sap in question turns out to be François Pignon (Gad Elmaleh) – the name of most of Veber's naïve protagonists – a porter who lives with his clingy best friend Richard (Dany Boon) and who has recently had his marriage proposal rebuffed by lifelong love and deep-in-debt bookstore proprietor Emilie (Virginie Ledoyen), who is being aggressively pursued by a sleazy cell phone salesman (Patrick Mille).

Back in April we reported on yet another remake of a foreign film, this one to be directed by Bobby and Peter Farrelly from a smash-hit French comedy called The Valet. Today, in an unusual twist (at least for non J-horror films), we hear that Sony Pictures Classics will bring the original film to these shores, a move that might have DreamWorks, the studio making the remake, a little nervous. After all, how many remakes are better than the originals? I mean, what if people see and actually like the French film? So much pressure for those poor Farrellys! That said, however, I'm not sure there's a significant overlap in the audiences for their films and those for subtitled comedies ...

In case you've forgotten, The Valet (both versions, one assumes) is about a "multimillionaire tycoon photographed kissing his famous mistress. To prevent his wife from seeking divorce, he bribes a parking valet to pose as his mistress' lover." In the French film, the tycoon is played by the completely wonderful Daniel Auteuil, while his wife, surprisingly, is played by Kristin Scott Thomas. The film was directed by Francis Veber, remakes of whose works -- The Birdcage primary among them -- have been fairly successful with American audiences; it'll be interesting to see how people react to the real thing when it's released here early next year.

DreamWorks has snatched up the remake rights to French director Francis Veber's La Doublure -- released only a month ago in France -- and signed Bobby and Peter Farrelly to direct said remake, which will be called The Valet. The film, not surprisingly, is a comedy about "a hapless valet who is captured in a photo of a fight between a Donald Trump-type mogul and his mistress, leading to all sorts of comedic entanglements." The main "entanglement" is that the valet is asked to "shack up" with the mistress -- something about giving the mogul a reason to get a divorce. (Variety's review is here, if you want to try to figure it out for yourself.) I'm just guessing here, but I'll bet you that someone ends up falling in love, despite class differences and awkward circumstances.

Based on reviews I've read, Veber's reputation is that he makes proverbial comedies with heart, and French audiences tend to dig them. American audiences, though we probably don't know it, have seen a few of his films as well -- remade, of course. The Birdcage, Father's Day, and Three Fugitives were all based on his comedies, and DreamWorks is fervently hoping The Valet makes Birdcage-style profits.

The movie has just been set to a writer, so it will be a while before we see how this newest Veber-rehash works out.