Le Talent de Mes Amis
24/07/17 Filed in: Amazon Prime
It's been a while since I viewed a French language film from Amazon Prime, basically because for various reasons I haven't been using my exercise bike, and that's when I watch these films. I had been working through a watch list and had more or less exhausted it, this latest film being one of only a few unwatched. Intuitively I had a less than enthusiastic feel for it, and as it turns out my intuition was spot on. It's received poor reviews and according to Wikipédia (France) it only lasted a month on cinema screens after release. The opening sequence suggest that the film may turn out to be a bit of a song and dance affair, but this is purely a confusing distraction.
Alex Lutz plays the lead role. I knew nothing of him but it appears that he is well-known for a highly successful one-man theatre show, as well as being an actor and producer. For this film he sits in the director's chair for the first time, metaphorically of course as he is present most of the time on screen. This is yet another male mid-life crisis story but in this case we have three males, Lutz as Alexandre Ludon, his work mate Jeff, and a schoolfriend from the past, Thibaut. Alexandre and Jeff work for a large multinational and are bored with their lives. This manifests itself in childlike behaviour that is, quite frankly, too silly for words: infantile, in fact. Their wives, Carole and Cécile respectively, provide the sanity - quelle surprise! Carole is undergoing IVF treatment and Alexandre appears to have no understanding of what this means for her, his empathy quotient being somewhere just above zero. Jeff seems more switched on at home, but is certainly less so at work, where his behaviour verges on slapstick.
Into this situation comes Thibaut, a friend of Alexandre at school, when he was fat and unloved. Here he is neither. As a personal development guru he comes to Alexandre and Jeff's company to give a pep talk. Suave, fit and bubbling over with confidence, he seems to be everything that Alexandre isn't, and as an old friend Alexandre is immediately keen to rekindle the relationship, much to the chagrin of Jeff. What follows is a life changing experience for Alexandre, being encouraged with his singing by Thibaut, while Jeff becomes more and more morose, and with it more and more childish. Tomfoolery in the office results in their female boss being speared in the forehead by a dart (yes, really!), Alexandre subsequently resigning to relaunch his life and Jeff getting the chop.
So Alexandre goes off to do his own thing (Carole, unsurprisingly, has already made herself absent), Thibaut crashes to earth with a bang, and Jeff hides his new (un)employment status from his wife, which as you will guess doesn't end well. But this is a comedy, so we probably know that things are likely to work out in the end. Well, they do, but in a contrived manner that is no more than you would expect from the general timbre of this rather silly film. It reminded me a little bit of Wayne's World (daft TV meets big screen), but whereas that worked in a big way, this French film just doesn't cut it. Perhaps as audiences we've moved on, or at least I would like to think so.
So Alexandre goes off to do his own thing (Carole, unsurprisingly, has already made herself absent), Thibaut crashes to earth with a bang, and Jeff hides his new (un)employment status from his wife, which as you will guess doesn't end well. But this is a comedy, so we probably know that things are likely to work out in the end. Well, they do, but in a contrived manner that is no more than you would expect from the general timbre of this rather silly film. It reminded me a little bit of Wayne's World (daft TV meets big screen), but whereas that worked in a big way, this French film just doesn't cut it. Perhaps as audiences we've moved on, or at least I would like to think so.