This is one of those romantic comedies where a free-spirited woman gets paired with an uptight dude and converts him to her side. Think Something Wild, or My Sassy Girl, or What’s Up Doc, or at least three Ben Stiller comedies.* But tons of good movies are novel variations on a familiar theme, and this one does that with a nice French twist. Jacques Gamblin is uptight Arthur Martin ( the running joke being, that’s also the name of a well-known appliance brand), a 50ish bird expert, who having agreed to coffee with free-spirited Baya, politely refuses her offer of sex (she always sleeps with a guy on the first date, she explains) because he has to perform a necropsy (animal autopsy). Sara Forestier, with memorably wide eyes and slightly crooked smile, is twentysomething Baya, the product of a hippie’s marriage to an Algerian and a self-decribed political whore, though one with the proverbial heart of gold. It’s more than a metaphor, as she seeks to convert France’s “fascists” to her more left-leaning ways by sleeping with them. Arthur looks like a right-winger to her, but isn’t. She just likes him, she says.
The charm of this comedy is that it’s both quite frivolous and also about something, in particular the need to escape the baggage of one’s past and family background.
*Thanks to tv.tropes.org for a couple of those suggestions
viewed 8/25/11 at Ritz Bourse and reviewed 8/25/11
No comments:
Post a Comment