Les infidèles (2012)
(The Players)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé, Alexandre Courtès, Jean Dujardin, Michel Hazanavicius, Jan Kounen, Éric Lartigau, Gilles Lellouche
Cast: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Isabelle Nanty, Sandrine Kiberlain, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Lamy
Synopsis:
Three substantial episodes exploring the more or less pathetic implications of Man's irresistible urge are interspaced with six humorous sketches.
Review:
Remember A Guide for the Married Man (1967)? Its smug, flippant attitude towards infidelity is evoked in this portmanteau film, ignoring the fact that sexual politics have moved on somewhat in the interim. What's more, seven out of eight directors are men, and French men to boot, which, together with its poster campaign, led to understandable accusations of complacency with regard to its subject. In fact, while some of it is in dubious taste and the male perspective predominates, it does amount to a moderately wide-ranging critique: episodes devoted to the loser who fails to get laid (recalling Matthau in the aforementioned film), and the cuckolded Humbert Humbert figure, ridicule the would-be seducer, whereas the female perspective is represented by the Bercot 'meta' segment featuring about-to-divorce real-life couple Dujardin and Lamy, and the one genuinely funny sketch in which Kiberlain dispenses therapy to a group of lotharios. Unfortunately, although it genuinely gives pause for thought along the way, its unevenness is epitomised by the closing gambit of framing the inveterate playboys' behaviour as a cloak for repressed homosexuality. Note: the Kounen episode, 'Ultimate Fucking', though quoted on IMDb, was absent from the version I saw, as it was from the closing credits. Perhaps just as well.
(The Players)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé, Alexandre Courtès, Jean Dujardin, Michel Hazanavicius, Jan Kounen, Éric Lartigau, Gilles Lellouche
Cast: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Isabelle Nanty, Sandrine Kiberlain, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Lamy
Synopsis:
Three substantial episodes exploring the more or less pathetic implications of Man's irresistible urge are interspaced with six humorous sketches.
Review:
Remember A Guide for the Married Man (1967)? Its smug, flippant attitude towards infidelity is evoked in this portmanteau film, ignoring the fact that sexual politics have moved on somewhat in the interim. What's more, seven out of eight directors are men, and French men to boot, which, together with its poster campaign, led to understandable accusations of complacency with regard to its subject. In fact, while some of it is in dubious taste and the male perspective predominates, it does amount to a moderately wide-ranging critique: episodes devoted to the loser who fails to get laid (recalling Matthau in the aforementioned film), and the cuckolded Humbert Humbert figure, ridicule the would-be seducer, whereas the female perspective is represented by the Bercot 'meta' segment featuring about-to-divorce real-life couple Dujardin and Lamy, and the one genuinely funny sketch in which Kiberlain dispenses therapy to a group of lotharios. Unfortunately, although it genuinely gives pause for thought along the way, its unevenness is epitomised by the closing gambit of framing the inveterate playboys' behaviour as a cloak for repressed homosexuality. Note: the Kounen episode, 'Ultimate Fucking', though quoted on IMDb, was absent from the version I saw, as it was from the closing credits. Perhaps just as well.
(The Players)
Country: FR
Technical: col/2.35:1 109m
Director: Emmanuelle Bercot, Fred Cavayé, Alexandre Courtès, Jean Dujardin, Michel Hazanavicius, Jan Kounen, Éric Lartigau, Gilles Lellouche
Cast: Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche, Isabelle Nanty, Sandrine Kiberlain, Guillaume Canet, Alexandra Lamy
Synopsis:
Three substantial episodes exploring the more or less pathetic implications of Man's irresistible urge are interspaced with six humorous sketches.
Review:
Remember A Guide for the Married Man (1967)? Its smug, flippant attitude towards infidelity is evoked in this portmanteau film, ignoring the fact that sexual politics have moved on somewhat in the interim. What's more, seven out of eight directors are men, and French men to boot, which, together with its poster campaign, led to understandable accusations of complacency with regard to its subject. In fact, while some of it is in dubious taste and the male perspective predominates, it does amount to a moderately wide-ranging critique: episodes devoted to the loser who fails to get laid (recalling Matthau in the aforementioned film), and the cuckolded Humbert Humbert figure, ridicule the would-be seducer, whereas the female perspective is represented by the Bercot 'meta' segment featuring about-to-divorce real-life couple Dujardin and Lamy, and the one genuinely funny sketch in which Kiberlain dispenses therapy to a group of lotharios. Unfortunately, although it genuinely gives pause for thought along the way, its unevenness is epitomised by the closing gambit of framing the inveterate playboys' behaviour as a cloak for repressed homosexuality. Note: the Kounen episode, 'Ultimate Fucking', though quoted on IMDb, was absent from the version I saw, as it was from the closing credits. Perhaps just as well.