KEY POINTS:
Rating: * * *
Verdict: Diverting and well-acted French farce.
In a string of hits like The Fugitives, The Closet and The Dinner Game, Francis Veber has confirmed his position as the master farceur of French cinema. This attempt at imitation by a lesser-known talent doesn't quite hit the spot, but is a diverting comedy outing for some familiar faces.
The ubiquitous Auteuil (is there an actor in English-language cinema who comes close to his versatility?) plays Gerard, a long-time redundant middle manager, who finally lands a job heading a packaging firm's Indonesian operation.
When he agrees to invite his new boss (Girardot) to dinner, his neighbour, Alexandre (Lhermitte), a marketing guru, smells a rat: Gerard, he announces, is being surreptitiously vetted and his apartment and lifestyle will need a makeover if he is to avoid having the job offer withdrawn.
Alexandre takes on the 24-hour refurbishment, dealing to the improbably provincial style of Gerard's banal wife Colette (an excellent Lemercier), replacing his Matisse prints with godawful modern art and imploring Gerard to hide his model trains. The stage is set (this is, and feels like, an adaptation of a play) for multiple pratfalls, misapprehensions and identity confusions.
Feeling at times like a rerun of The Dinner Game (in which Lhermitte also starred), The Dinner Guest is not without charms. Its pace is finely judged, it cleverly semaphores obvious jokes and then surprises us by avoiding them and its underlying message about being yourself is delivered delicately rather than laid on with a trowel. But it is, in the end, a reminder of how damn good, film after film, Veber has been.
Peter Calder
Cast: Daniel Auteuil, Valerie Lemercier, Thierry Lhermitte, Hippolyte Girardot
Director: Laurent Bouhnik
Running time: 86 mins
Rating: PG (mild coarse language) in French with English subtitles
Screening: Bridgeway, Rialto
