| THE DINNER GAME Director: Francis Veber "You don't have to try to be funny. If the situation is funny, and you try to be funny, it's redundant. The more sincere you are, and the more human you are, the funnier you are. I always tell my actors not to try to make people laugh. Just believe the situation and make it as if it were real life." Francis Veber The auteur theory coined by French critics in the 1950's as a way of judging the merit of a director’s entire work is usually not used when referring to comedy directors. Yet if you look at the history of cinema there are many -- from Buster Keaton and Preston Sturges, from Mel Brooks and Woody Allen -- who have earned the right to be called auteurs. But when it comes to French comedy it’s even more difficult to find a director who qualifies as an auteur. Unless you go all the way back to the silent era, there haven’t been many French comedy directors worthy of the distinction, with the exception of Jacques Tati, whose films are predicated on silent film aesthetic. Certainly, the most overlooked comedy director in the world today is French director Francis Veber. Actually, while he is overlooked in terms of critical consensus, he certainly is not by Hollywood producers who have often bought, borrowed and stolen his ideas for remakes. Indeed, Veber’s claim to fame in America is that four of the films he’s directed and four of the scripts he’s written have been remade into Hollywood movies. His new comedy, being no exception, has already had the rights purchased by Dreamworks to be remade in the near future. Yes, The Dinner Game is a comedy, but there is a lesson to be learned watching it. The message is that "if you invite an idiot over for dinner he will make you look like a fool." The film’s set-up is a dinner club of mean-spirited, high society businessmen who invite "idiots" -- preferably with amusing hobbies -- over for dinner to hear their stories and secretly smirk at them. They set up a scoring system so that whoever invites the biggest clown to dinner wins. For this dinner, Pierre (Thierry Lhermitte), with the help of a friend, has found a bumbling heavy-set man named Francois Pignon (Jacques Villeret), who delightedly builds matchstick models of famous architectural structures (he is proud of the fact that he used 346,000 matchsticks to build his model of the Eiffel Tower). Unfortunately, Pierre has injured his back and is unable to attend the dinner, but since he has already invited Pignon over for a drink he decides to keep him company for a while. This turns out to be a big mistake because as the night wears on, Pierre cannot seem to get rid of him. To compound his predicament, Pierre’s wife has just left him, his mistress is angry with him, and worse -- since he has numerous undeclared works of art -- Pignon turns out to be a tax inspector. Pierre’s life begins to careen out of control, and since he is helpless with a bad back, he decides to use Pignon to patch things back together again. The more he uses him, however, the worse things get. Veber enjoys pairing unlikely leads and contrasting personalities for comedic effect. Pierre is a youthful upper crust who fits the businessman stereotype and Pignon surely ranks among the goofiest clowns to stumble on screen -- good enough to win 'Best Actor' at the French Cesar’s. He is truly an unique character, and the whole fun of the movie is watching Pierre’s life slowly unravel at the hands of his awkward dimwitted guest. The film is similar in structure to a play or a sitcom since it primarily takes place in one room of an apartment. But don’t let that keep you away because the cast is humorous, the performances are impeccable and it all moves quickly along to a hilarious, poignant and painful ending that’s probably too muchfor both men to ever make amends. -- Matt Langdon HOME / REVIEWS / BOX OFFICE / LINKS |