The Valet (2006)

Delightful Comedy

This was a surprise. Somehow I did not expect it to be so funny and well done. From descriptions I had read, it sounded so trite, I was expecting some silly farce. I bought it on sale and was totally delighted to find it is a wonderfully light hearted, funny romp.

A billionaire has a drop-dead gorgeous mistress and a wily wife, played by English actress Krisitn Scott Thomas, with a faultless French accent. He is torn between the two, promising fidelity to his wife and divorce to his mistress. A paparazzi snaps his picture standing next to his mistress, just as a strange man, a valet at a parking lot, walks by. He tries to convince his wife that the girl is with the valet and not him.

This movie is highly underated and is worth watching. It has a great cast and a marvellous script.




August 3, 2008

fun but occasionally strained romp through Paris

The featherweight French comedy, "The Valet," harkens back to those more halcyon days when frenetic pacing and farcical misunderstandings often made for comic gold. And while "The Valet" may not be exactly golden (it`s barely gold-plated, if you want to know the absolute truth), it's still a moderately diverting trifle - provided you don't ask more of it than it can reasonably deliver, that is.

The protagonist is Francois Pignon (Gad Elmaleh), a struggling, average-looking chap, who works as a parking valet at a high-end restaurant located right across the street from the Eiffel Tower. Francois' simple life is turned upside down when, through a fluke of fate, he is hired to play the lover of a French supermodel (Alice Taglioni) whose long-running affair with a married billionaire CEO (Daniel Auteuil) has recently come to light in the Paris tabloids. This leads to a great deal of complications for all involved, including Francois' pretty young love interest (Virginie Ledoyen) who, unfortunately, has not been let in on the ruse.

For all its undeniable Gallic charms, "The Valet," written and directed by Francis Veber, is probably funnier in concept than it is in execution. It delivers its two best jokes right upfront - a wonderfully inventive visual gag that introduces the main character, and a clever routine about a doctor who is more sick than his patients - but that's all within the first ten minutes, and the movie never reaches those comic heights again. Still, if you're partial to a sitcom-level scenario in which people run around from one contrived set-up and telegraphed sight-gag to the next - all against colorful Parisienne backdrops - then this might well be the movie for you. If not, you might want to skip it altogether and seek out something more to your liking. June 29, 2008

Good french farce

Daniel Auteuil was excellent as usual. Alice Taglioni and the rest of the cast was little weaker. Humorous, enjoyable, but forgettable. Not quite up to the farce "The Closet" or the satire and wit of "The Dinner Game" I would probably go as high as 4.5 June 15, 2008

Good overall, though the ending was a tad weak

This was perhaps the most Hollywood-like French comedy that I've ever seen. You could, in fact, substitute English-speaking actors, not change the style in the slightest, and remake it scene for scene as an American film. I'm not saying that this is necessarily a good or bad thing. Just an observation.

Although I thought the ending of the film a bit weak -- well, OK, very weak, as if they couldn't decide how to end it, so that they just slapped something on -- overall this was a quite entertaining film. The plot is simple. A billionaire industrialist, whose wife is the majority stockholder in his company, is accidentally photographed with his supermodel girlfriend. To attempt to cover up his affair he pays both the girlfriend and a man who was caught in the photo just as he just happened to be walking past them to pretend to be romantically involved. The man, who works as a parking valet, agrees to it in order to get the money to cover the debts of the woman he loves and who has just turned down his proposal of marriage. Typical shenanigans ensue.

This is not a great comedy, but they get enough right that it is a lot of fun up until the end, when it flickers out. Apart from Daniel Auteuil and Kristin Scott Thomas (I don't speak French so I don't know how good her French is, but it sounded pretty good to my untrained ear) I was not terribly familiar with the cast, but everyone was quite good. Some of the best roles were by supporting players, like Pascal, the absurdly suave cell phone dealer and the doctor, who receives more medical treatment than his patients. There were a lot of great moments. I like it when Émilie, the woman who turned down François Pignon's proposal near the beginning, exclaims over the phone that she doesn't even want to think about François, bends down from her bed to hang up the phone, whose base is on the floor, surrounded by magazines with François's supposed supermodel girlfriend on the cover.

All in all this is a nice, fun movie. Also it is probably one of the more accessible French comedies for Americans unaccustomed to foreign films. Everything in the film will feel familiar and easy to digest. March 20, 2008

Buying our own copy after watching the rental 3 times.

Comedic timing--excellent. Directing--excellent. Setting--Paris (scene at Versailles?).
Great, feel-good movie. Laugh-out-loud funny at times.
If you like this one, watch "The Dinner Game". February 29, 2008

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