At the beginning of this curiously renamed French farcical comedy, Annie (Sabine Azema) blows out a lot of candles on her birthday cake, surrounded by adoring husband Francois (Andre Dousollier) and their children and grandchildren.
Tellingly, one candle is left lit and a second puff extinguishes it. Because the film is French and not American, director Ivan Calberac doesn’t labour the event and no one makes a glib comment like “Oooh, one boyfriend” but it is a pointer to what is about to happen.
While on the subject of American vs French treatments of films, I have lately noticed some subtlety creeping into Hollywood comedies. While this genre has few entries in its greatest-ever column since American Beauty (1999), perhaps the Septics are getting cannier?
One could argue with my contention about the greatest-ever of this century but I consulted website IMDb and here’s their contribution: 1 Zombieland, 2 Shaun of the Dead, 3 Due Date, 4 The Hangover, 5 The Hangover II, 6 The Hangover III, 7 Adventureland, 8 21 Jump Street, 9 Pain & Gain, 10 We’re the Millers. *
This list is based on viewer voting so I think there is a correlation here? It was French philosopher Joseph le Maistre who said voters get the politicians they deserve. The same applies to film audiences.
I had thought it was H.L. Mencken who made the voters’ comment but when I checked this, he had gone one better: “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
In the first and best True Detective (2014), detective Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) goes some way towards explaining the US audience. As he looked into a space full of believers listening to a fire and brimstone evangelist, Cohle says: “I wonder what the combined IQ is of the people in this tent?” Not high, Rust.
Which is a long way round to explaining why they changed N’avoue jamais to Riviera Revenge but Paul Sullivan is right. It’s because of American audiences. They wouldn’t see a movie called N’avoue Jamais, let alone look up its translation as Never Confess.
(I had the quaint idea that it was for Australian audiences but that is ridiculous as we are all seeing with our own eyes how irrelevant we as a country are on the world stage).
Cynicism finished (accurate though every observation was) N’avoue Jamais is funny.
After the birthday party, Francois, husband to Annie for more than 50 years, decides to clear his attic so his grandchildren, a fifth for his son and daughter-in-law, can have more room when they visit. While doing this he comes across a love letter written to Annie, two children into her marriage. The author is not Francois.
From here the audience is taken on a romp as the unapologetic Annie and her husband, a retired general with a rabid right-wing attitude, spar. They travel 300km to Nice where Francois wants to confront the lover who is also a former friend, Boris (Thierry Lhermitte).
As this occurs, the couple’s children emerge with their secrets and misgivings about their father and Francois learns plenty about himself and his marriage in the process.
The comedy is interspersed with moving examples of a father’s shortcomings and hit home to at least this reviewer when his son, Adrien (Sebastien Chassagne) says: “He doesn’t see me.” This son’s puppeteer play brings tears to his father’s eyes.
When the movie reaches its predictable conclusion, Annie blows all the candles out on her next year’s cake. No boyfriends.
But there’s another twist yet to come.
NOTE: Although no authority, I have seen a lot of French movies but until now not one in which Sabine Azema has appeared. In fact the only one of the 60 films and TV series she has acted in of which I have heard is The Well-Digger’s Daughter (2011).
* To differentiate from others of similar names and give context to the era old movies were released, I always add the year of production after every film name. Please forgive me for not looking up the relevant years of the 10 pieces of puff which were listed on IMDb.
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I WRIGHT 