User Reviews

Imagine, if you will, a somewhat contented married woman finding out her husband's infidelity during the celebration of a birthday party. That is what happens to Marie-France, when her husband, Henri, pulls out panties from his pocket to be used as a handkerchief. Marie-France becomes furious, storming out of the house. His son, Sebastian and his wife, Clementine, a struggling couple, decide to take Marie-France to their tiny apartment, something they feel it is a temporary arrangement. Little did they know what they were getting into.

Complicating things, Henri has been seeing his much younger mistress, Charlene, who wants to be called Chacha, and is expecting a baby, out of the relationship. Henri, sorry about the incident, wants to keep his fun going, while trying to patch up things with Marie-France. Sebastian and Clementine find out the situation is hard to endure, especially in such cramped quarters. What's more, the couple's young daughters listen to the adult conversations and they want to know about terms like "menage a trois", "cojones" and "sodomy", which the parents translate for them in terms they can really understand.

Lea Fazer, the creator of this frantic comedy, throws a lot of ideas into this film whose strength lies in the casting of the leading roles. Nathalie Baye and Pierre Arditti have been paired in other films before in more serious fare. They prove they are good at giving the audience the good time they went to get at the cinema. The film marks the last appearance by Jocelyn Quivrin, seen here as Sebastian, a good actor, that sadly died before the movie was released. Aissa Maiga, Jacques Weber, Eric Cantonna, Francoise Bertin and the rest of the supporting players they had a good time while working for Ms. Fazer.

This is a comedy without pretensions to be enjoyed by viewers looking for a few laughs.

Writer-director Lea Fazer turns in a well crafted, highly polished movie that may not trouble the judges on the Festival circuit but definitely delivers in terms of pure Entertainment. She begins with one of the most elemental situations of all; at a family gathering in celebration of a birthday a long-married husband reaches into his pocket for a handkerchief and emerges with a pair of panties which, alas, do not belong to his wife, who is present in the room. In an effort to calm her hysteria the couple's son and his wife offer to put her up for what they assume will be overnight at best, a few days at worst. Bad move. The couple, plus two children, are living in a shoe box so even a night is going to be traumatic and from this commonplace situation Fazer contrives to launch several balls into the air and keep them spinning, not least the fact that the owner of the panties is pregnant with the husband's child. Though everything is there in the writing it still helps if you have decent actors to read the words and are able to convey the required emotions and in Nathalie Baye and Michel Arditti (who have worked together on previous occasions) Fazer has two of the best in the business though neither are the supporting cast, largely unknown outside France, chopped liver. In short a vastly entertaining entry that may or may not hold up five or ten years from now but in terms of now it is excellent.