My Best Friend
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Movie Reviews of My Best Friend
Movie Review: Mon meilleur film!
Summary: 5 Stars
"My Best Friend" could have been maudlin (in the hands of a less talented foreign director) or irritatingly over-the top (in he hands of a less talented American director. Instead it is a believable and charming look at friendship in the 21st century, and the lengths to which some will go to get it.
Francois Coste (Daniel Auteuil) is a Parisian dealer in Art Deco antiques. He is completely focused on his business, and on the accumulation of goods. Evidently, this monomania has come at the expense of family, friendships and business ethics - has gained him the notoriety of being a man who has no friends. At a restaurant gathering on his birthday, his associates tell him bluntly that when he dies, there will be exactly zero people at his funeral. Coste can't accept this and claims to have many friends. He is challenged by his business partner (whose sexual preference he does not even know) to prove this. He has 10 days to prove that he is not totally bereft of friends.
Bruno Bouley (Balanchine in the English version) is a voluble and warmhearted taxi driver - the kind who rattles off historical details as he drives his fares around town. Bouley has tried to make his talent pay off by appearing on French TV game shows, but his extreme nervousness keeps him from being chosen as a contestant.
One day, these two meet, and after a certain amount of skittishness, Costes decides that this hyper-extraverted cab driver could be his ticket to winning his bet. He engages him to teach him to be friendly.
The film could have taken many paths, but trod one of believability and pathos. Auteuil played Costes marvelously as a man who is seemingly pleasant outwardly, but whose actions, though not evil or outrageous in themselves, pile on one another over time to revealed a character who was toxic and uncaring. Boon played Bouley as the classic lost soul - talented, sensitive and warm - who could neither capitalize on his skill nor find solace among his own acquaintances.
"My Best Friend" is engaging, real, funny and often poignant. The plot line is tight, providing plausible limits and rationales for character actions. There is smart use of a Greek vase depicting the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus -- an object that becomes the unexpected focus of Costes's attention and a key element in the film. The emotional heat of "My Best Friend" is always set on low. But like Costes's many business acquaintances, viewers will find themselves pulling for him, hoping that he will find it in himself to be less "détestable" - another French word that needs no translation - and more "sympathique" or likable - a quality that Costes sought throughout this wonderful film.
Movie Review: A FRIEND FOR A LONLY MAN.
Summary: 5 Stars
MY BEST FRIEND (Dir: Patrice Leconte, France 2006).
In "My best friend", Monsieur Françoise Coste (Daniel Auteuil), is a solitaire Marchant, that with his partner Catherine (Jullie Gayet), attend an auction, hence calls its attention, a black vase with Greek figures about the friendship (the vase used to contained the tears of a friend). Coste wins in the auction the vase, by which pays a stratospheric price of 2.00000 Euros. That same night, is held an informal dinner with his dealers friends, where M. Coste stresses that he attended to a funeral of a colleague where only about seven people were in the church. Somebody reply that probably to M. Coste's funeral nobody will attend because he doesn't have any fiend.
He is flouting that assertion, and when asked to mentioning the name of one friend, not colleague or client, he is paralyzed, Catherine bet the vase with M. Coste, invited to displayed, in the period of 10-day his "best friend. "
The loneliness of contemporaries men is the landscape of this Leconte story. Bruno the taxi-driver who has collecting historic facts and trivial, dates, events, authors, with aspiring compete in one of this television shows knows, that his three "S": smile, sincerity and sympathy, although them work in their taxi-driver business, that do not help in every days life. The friendship, this form of get in touch with people mirroring the bond of blood or heritage, comradely, without necessarily have a sexual motive, it is almost disappearing. Men do not use to be so friendly any more with one or two people. Women do all the time. Men do not. They are massively "friends", but the one or two, paralyzing them before the possibility of what it can comment or, in the worst cases of what he can feel. One does not choose brothers but friend we do, so is one of the main issues of this very good film of Laconte.
The evolution gave us a brain too large, for the basic functions of an organism, eating, sleeping, reproduced, the reason for this is the socialization, verbal and non-verbal languages, the neurons in mirror, to "read the mind" of another to make coherent my interaction. And yet, Laconte said, despite having a brain equivalent a very sophisticate and expensive car, we, men, use that fancy machine only to go to "seven & eleven", and return to our bedroom to sigh because our loneliness.
Movie Review: Near flawless film from France
Summary: 5 Stars
My, these comments are verbose - so I will keep mine short!!
This movie is like a bottle of Beaujolais: light, sweet, goes with every occasion!
With the exception of the long-suffering girlfriend's role, this film illustrates very universally appreciated concepts on the notion of "friendship." Namely: how do you know when you actually have got one?
This movie offers a very clear and consice answer to that question. And the response is so humorously laid out in one of the last scenes of the movie, I was literally crying from laughing so hard in the theatre.
You can easily put this film in the "romantic comedy" section since friendship serves as the basis for so many great loves. This film merely singles out friendship from everything else and, then, asks us to consider not only "who are your friends?", but also, "what is most important in your life?".
Movie Review: Another winner by Patrice Leconte!
Summary: 5 Stars
Another winner by Director/Writer Patrice Leconte. Daniel Auteuil gives a stellar performance as an Antiques Dealer who has no friends. The entire cast is wonderful. This film is poignant, funny, touching, and fresh. Patrice Leconte's films are in a class of their own. His creativity shines in terms of the plot, themes, and the down-to-earth realities of friendship. This film asks some tough questions -- what is the real test of a friendship, how does one find and make a best friend. It highlights some of the difficulties of finding good friends in this day and age, and at the same time it manages to touch the heart. Bravo!Movie Review: Light and fun movie
Summary: 5 Stars
A rather interesting story line, not like I thought it would be, but Daniel Auteuil is one of my favorites and he is paired once again with Dany Boon who is excellent with a character that seems to know what he wants from life. He gives a good try at teaching his natural ways to Auteuil. Perhaps a lesson we all learn the hard way - being yourself is easier than being someone else.
Watch the movie for the laughs and great acting.