A good movie

I already saw this movie but, since it was ages ago and since it was available on Netflix, I thought I might as well check it out again. It was also years ago since I saw a movie directed by Bertrand Blier, I used to be a fan of his work when I was still living in France and, within the first 5 mins of this movie, I remembered why. Indeed, after a rather clunky introduction, when the 3 characters started to wander in the night together, I was surprised by how good the damned thing actually was. As usual with this director, it was quite chaotic but, underneath this chaos, it was actually so subtle and the way Blier managed to reach this seemingly impossible balance between chaos and subtlety was actually impressive. On top of that, the 3 actors involved (Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc, Miou-Miou) were all really good, especially Depardieu who was quite spellbinding to behold. Unfortunately, it didn’t last though and, as soon as Antoine finally caved in to Bob’s flirtation, the whole thing pretty much fell apart, I’m afraid.  Maybe it should have happened towards the end or maybe it shouldn’t have happened at all, the point is that, after that, it seemed that Blier didn’t know what to do with these characters anymore. In fact, suddenly, they all completely changed and the whole thing then became some kind of burlesque comedy about a gay couple moonlighting as transvestites which was not as funny as Blier probably thought it was. Indeed, before that, there was such an intense and interesting dynamic in this ménage-à-trois but it all vanished and what remained was the same chaotic narrative structure but these interesting characters were then replaced by some rather pathetic caricatures of themselves. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, I still enjoyed this wild comedy and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Bertrand Blier. 

7/10