Sai and Shujath talk Cinema

This French comedy (whose title translates to The Idiots’ Dinner) is based on writer-director Francis Veber’s play (and was recently remade in Hindi as Bheja Fry).

Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermitte) is an unscrupulous wealthy publisher who along with his friends participates in a once a week dinner where each of the participants brings along an “idiot” for fun. The friends have great fun with them while the so-called idiots are totally unaware about it. On one such occasion, Brochant gets to know of Francois Pignon (Jacques Villeret), a tax accountant who builds replicas of famous architectural wonders with matchsticks. Deciding that he would make a great guest for the dinner, he invites him over to his house. As luck would have it, he is down with a bad back and his wife leaves him on the same day. Unfortunately for him, Pignon tries to help him out and hilarity ensues.

At 81 minutes, the film is quite short and Veber doesn’t waste much time. Once the setup is established, he lets Villeret take over and the film gets increasingly funny. He is ably aided by Lhermitte in a role whose importance audiences generally tend to neglect. Villeret does a superb job and plays the role with an earnestness that makes Pignon believable. Apparently he played the role six hundred times on stage and it is no wonder that his comic timing is spot on.

There are a lot of side-splitting moments and the most uproarious of these are when Pignon is on the phone. On the downside, I might have missed a bit of the humor due to the language barrier. Nevertheless, there are enough laughs on the whole making it worth a watch.