Please, Please Me!

Dominic Corry, Flicks.co.nz

Flicks Writer

The contemporary American romantic comedy is a rigid, formulaic beast these days. Even attempts to subvert the cliches come across as cliched. So while this French romcom is most likely packed with cliches of its own, it’s still a breath of fresh air in a world populated by the likes of The Proposal and The Ugly Truth.

Triple threat Emmuanuel Mouret (Shall We Kiss) writes, directs and stars here, and lines himself up with a torrent of insanely attractive French beauties. After his Botteceli blonde girlfriend (Frederique Bel) insists he sleep with a woman he accidentally seduced at a cafe, Jean-Jacques (Mouret) is surprised to discover the woman is the daughter of the French president, played by a luminously red-headed Judith Godreche, whom you may recall from Phil Janou’s Entropy.

Struggling to maintain his composure at a high-society dinner, he stumbles ass-backwards into a number of slap-sticky situations, which then finds him in the arms of the first daughter’s maid, played by another unfeasibly attractive French actress, the diminutive and charming Deborah Francois (The First Day of the Rest of Your Life).

Mouret himself, sporting Jake Gyllenhaal’s goldfish eyes and a po-faced expression as classic as French farce, makes for a mostly sympathetic protagonist, despite the surfeit of hotness that parades in front of him. His physical comedy is subtle but effective.

Please, Please Me has some more progressive ideas about fidelity than most American films like this, but that’s another welcome point of difference. And whilst the slight social humour might be a little lost on English-speaking audiences, this elicits more than its fair share of smiles.

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