The Closet


3/4

Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Gerard Depardieu, Michelle Laroque, Michel Aumont, Thierry Lhermitte

Rated R for A Scene of Sexuality

“The Closet” is an example of an endangered species: the screwball comedy.  It relies mainly on timing and increasingly hilarious situations.  This is really my favorite kind of comedy, but so few of them are actually funny (other than the British version of “Death at a Funeral,” I can’t think of any that truly worked).  Although not a perfect example (it has the jokes but not the momentum), it’s still very funny.

Francois Pignon (Auteuil) is the world’s most boring man.  He’s an accountant at a condom factory, but he’s about to be let off.  Then his new neighbor (Aumont) comes up with an idea: pretend to be gay.  If you’re gay, he reasons, they can’t fire you or else they’ll look homophobic.  Now the office dullard’s life is about to get a lot more interesting.

Despite what it sounds like, this film is not at all homophobic.  On the contrary, it pokes fun at the need for everyone to be politically correct.  Writer/director Francois Verber gets a lot of mileage out of everyone’s sudden need to be gay-affirming.  This idea is especially funny when it comes to Felix (Depardieu), the office boor.  Felix hates Francois, and his coworker, Guillame (Lhermitte) knows this, so Guillame decides to have a bit of fun with Felix by telling him that his homophobic remarks, lighthearted they may be, are about to get him fired.  So Felix now has to cozy up to Francois.

The movie is like that.  Characters have to against their nature to look gay-affirming in order to keep their jobs.  Some of the situations these characters get involved in are pricelessly funny.

The acting is excellent.  Daniel Auteuil is almost too good as the meek and lifeless Francois.  He’s so boring that even the audience loses interest.  He does get better once he realizes he’s in over his head and starts growing a backbone.  The French Great Gerard Depardieu is hilarious as Felix; his pride gets damaged so much, and we love to see it every time; his scenes with Thierry Lhermitte are some of the highlights because no one plays a nasty backstabber like Thierry Lhermitte.  Michel Aumont provides a good match for Francois, playing the part with both humor and pathos.

The film is funny right from the get-go.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really build, and director Francois Verber often has trouble sustaining the comic energy.  Still, there are more laughs in this film than in most comedies, so it’s definitely worth a viewing for just about everyone.

Note: I can’t for the life of me understand why this got an R rating. The MPAA said it was for “a scene of sexuality,” but said scene is brief and anything but explicit. This is PG-13 material at best.

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