The Closet
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Movie Reviews of The Closet
Movie Review: An actual comedy!
Summary: 4 Stars
What an enjoyable film! Funny from start to finish and full of little visual laughs. Leave it to the French (or British, or Italians) to be heartwarminly politically incorrect. Just go see it.Movie Review: Constructing homosexuality
Summary: 4 Stars
You can still come out from the closet if you have never entered it. Closet is a pleasant, light and comic movie about constructing homosexuality, without being a homosexual at all.Movie Review: French Farce is funny but too tasteful.
Summary: 3 Stars
The writer and director who brought us La Cauge Au Folles and the recent comic cult hit; The Dinner Game, now delivers the Closet. The Closet is one of the most tasteful politically incorrect French farces I've seen. Everything is being delivered with such a gentle touch, it's hard to believe this is the same director who delivered the funny but mean spirited Dinner Game. The film is a little stronger than a television sit-com, but not much. It's an easy film to like--too easy.
The Closet stars four of Frances most popular home grown box-office stars and was a huge hit there in late 2000. It arrived in U.S. theaters in 2001.
I laughed quite a bit during the Closet, but as I was watching I also knew the film could have been much better. There were a lot of missed opportunities and with the cast involved it would have taken a real effort to completely fail to entertain. I appreciated the decision not to go completely sappy with some of the twists the story took and I think the film is a far better than something like In and Out to whom it's distantly related.
Mild mannered, milquetoast, almost invisible Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil) works as an accountant in a condom factory. He's such a non-entity when there's no room for him in the company picture he sits it out. He's such a nice dull guy, even the most gregarious guy at the company has stopped playing practical jokes on him.
Then Francois overhears the gregarious guy Felix Santini (Gerard Depardieu) and his friend Guillaume (Thierry Lhermitte) laughing about the fact that Fancois was about to be fired. Will anyone even notice?
It's the last straw for Francois whose wife left him almost a year ago (though he still loves her) Francois' teenage son avoids him whenever possible, he has no hobbies, or friends and without a job, he'll be unable to give his wife alimony. He contemplates committing suicide.
His new neighbor, Belone (Michel Aumont) however be-friends him. He is retired corporate psychologist and he has a plan to help keep his job. Using some doctored photos, Belone, creates a rumor at the factory that Francois is gay. Fearing there could be bad publicity from the gay community which would hurt condom sales, the company can't fire Francois now. Francois boss, the beautiful Mlle. Bertrand (Michele Laroque) is not only suspicious that something doesn't add up, but she's also suddenly intrigued by Francois.
Francois long string of bad luck and dullness has come to an end.
Everyone's attitude toward the former invisible employee suddenly changes. Even gregarious homophobe Felix is being nice to him for some reason. Of course complications crop up, but the film is utterly predictable with its twists.
The film is tame in tone and the humor pretty gentle. The direction from a visual standpoint is totally lackluster - though comic timing is sharp. It's really the charisma and skill of the actors (Daniel Auteuil here acts like a French speaking Tony Randall,) that makes this film as successful and funny as it is. They make it worth watching.
DVD STUFF
The Closet is presented in anamorphic widescreen with 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The colors are sharp and very little grain, dirt or print damage is visible. The black levels seems to be very strong.
The soundtrack is clean and free from any distortion or noise. There's not a lot of sound effects or even appropriate occasions which would use the full spectrum of a home surround system, but the music and ambient noises are well distributed to create a natural sounding environment. We've all seen foreign films where everyone talks in strange hollow disembodied and over-modulated voices. That is not the case here. The film is in French and the English subtitles are very easy to read.
DVD EXTRAS:
Little is here but three theatrical trailers.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Closet is an amusing clever French comedy that delivers enjoyable performances. It should have been better than it is, but if you are looking for something a little different and in the mood to laugh it's certainly worth a look. If you're put off by subtitles (which are very easy to read on this DVD) then that's you're loss.
3 1/2 stars. It's funny but could have and should have been better.
Christopher Jarmick, is the author of The Glass Cocoon with Serena F. Holder a critically acclaimed, steamy suspense thriller.
Movie Review: Not Verber's best...
Summary: 3 Stars
To be sure, Francis Verber has talent. With the wildly funny "Dinner Game", he showed that he was able to weave hilarious situational comedy. Unfortunately, "The Closet" does not pick up where "The Dinner Game" left off. There's nothing awful about it, but in a failed attempt to put a new spin on Verber's creation Francois Pignon, "The Closet" never delivers. Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil) is considered an idiot by many who work with him at a condom factory and is on the verge of being fired. He gets word of this, and dismayed turns to his new neighbor Belone (Michel Aumont). Belone suggests a tricky scheme to save Pignon's job: pretend that he is gay and the company will never fire him if they want to save their image. The scheme is working, and on the other side of the spectrum there is another prank being played. Homophobe Felix Santini (Gerard Depardieu) is being pressured to act nice to Pignon to save his job, and unexpected things begin to happen.
Francois Pignon is one of the funnier characters I have encountered in recent years. In Verber's previous film he was a flat-out idiot, meaning well but always saying the wrong things and the wrong times. In "The Closet", everyone calls him an idiot, but I don't buy it. He seems perfectly intelligent to me. Pignon is translated here as a boring punch line without the setup. Much to my surprise, I found that I couldn't care less what happens to him over the course of the film. One of the most valuable pieces of advice I could give to Verber from an audience member's perspective is: if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Only partly because of Pignon's shortcomings does the film fall flat. Most of the jokes just aren't funny. They're the same sort of recycled gay jokes we get all the time in movies. The screenplay feels worn and tired, and what could've been a breath of fresh air becomes recycled and stale. Verber is merely taking an interesting idea and presenting the obvious "What-ifs" that immediately pop into one's mind when hearing a synopsis about the film.
The acting was incredibly sub-par as well. Daniel Auteuil, who is on the whole a very good actor gives a performance as monotone and boring as Pignon is (see him in "The Widow of Saint-Pierre" if you really want to see what he's made of). Gerard Depardieu is fair, but doesn't show enough desperation that we are told Felix so obviously has. Michele Laroque breathes a little more life into her character Mlle Bertrand, Pignon's secretary; she is the highlight of an ensemble that is relatively uninteresting and never shows enough range.
"The Closet" is a wasted opportunity. In situational comedy, we need to care about or at least understand the characters to a certain extent or it will be impossible to laugh when they get into trouble. While Verber seemed like he could handle that, in "The Closet" it doesn't seem he believes in his characters; as if he believes that the audience need only take them at face value. Unfortunately, "The Closet" ranks as one of the most disappointing ventures of the year.
Movie Review: Comes on strong but finishes weak.
Summary: 3 Stars
A rubber company that specializes in manufacturing condoms is downsizing, and Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil) is about to be laid off. Pignon is an extremely ordinary and dull person, and no one can think of a good reason to keep him on. Also, he is still in love with his ex-wife and tries to be a father to his estranged son, but neither of them return his affection. Getting his pink slip sends Pignon into a short-lived depression, when his new neighbor hatches a scheme to help Pignon keep his job. Belone, the neighbor, doctors some photos of men in a gay bar--putting Pignon's face on one of the men--and sends them in an anonymous envelope to his employer. He tells Pignon to not even worry about acting gay; just stay the same, he says, and everyone around you will alter *their* behavior. The main objective is, of course, to scare a condom company out of firing a gay man, and as expected, all manner of hilarity ensues. Director and screenwriter Francis Veber's "The Closet" rides the wave of international success stirred by his 1998 film "The Dinner Game" without providing as well-structured or as consistent a story. The first half of the film is every bit as funny as the setup to "The Dinner Game," supplying nearly a dozen fascinating characters (all wonderfully acted by a superb ensemble cast), and promising much. Part of concept of the film deals with shifting the focus from Pignon to the people around him. Unfortunately, in an 80-minute film, Veber is unable to complete even a minimal story arc for each character--which leaves the film feeling somewhat disjointed in the end.
Perhaps it is to Veber's detriment, in a film like this, that he writes such consistently fascinating characters; if the characters were less intriguing, the audience would not protest when one of them disappeared or suddenly and inexplicably turned into a simple caricature. For example, Gerard Depardieu plays Santini, an office homophobe who must begin to "play nice" with Pignon or risk losing his own job. For a while, this relationship promises the sort of intense character interaction at which Veber excels. Soon, however, Santini undergoes a comic but inexplicable personality change and is marginalized from the film. Santini's role in the story is replaced by a smattering of vignettes which show other office workers being alternately cruel and kind toward Pignon.
Additionally, like Veber's previous film, "The Closet" obtains its comic premise from a social injustice. This film, however, is slightly more blatant in its message-oriented nature. In message films, an audience often has to endure forced dialogue--sometimes even entire forced scenes--which are not organic to the piece. While "The Closet" is not as preachy as it might have been in the hands of another director, the occasional sermonizing does detract from the film.