LES GRANDS DUCS (48)

Directed by: Patrice Leconte

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Jean Rochefort, Jean-Pierre Marielle

The Pitch: Three over-the-hill actors tour the provinces with a diabolical-looking farce called "Scooby Doo".

Theo Sez: Three French veterans in amiable form, doing a genre - the "luvvie" farce, theatrical camp underlaid with show-must-go-on sentimentality - more associated with British than French comedy, perhaps due to the differences in the respective national characters (the kind of blustering, temperamental hamminess being sent up here is a lot like those "ordinary Frenchmen" once played by Raimu - it's just not seen as particularly eccentric behaviour in French pop-culture). Unsurprisingly it doesn't have the swooning, heartwarming quality of a film like IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER - it doesn't think of the Theatah as a magical place, nor of acting as (beneath the bitchiness and prima donna-isms) a particularly noble profession ; nor, unfortunately, does it have the intricate plotting and split-second timing of something like NOISES OFF. It's just a mild, easy-going comedy, alternating between the goofily enjoyable and the somewhat silly. If Blake Edwards ever made a GRUMPY OLD MEN movie (with a free hand to dump all the repressed prurience and replace it with his brand of airy absurdity), it might turn out a bit like this.