Quick Mea Culpa: Another “leftover” review that wasn’t finished by the time I went on vacation last month.
This little French comedy was included in the trailers for Black Book so Somara and I decided to check it out. The premise of The Valet sounds like every other episode of Three’s Company but it succeeds through its execution of “less is more” unlike most American romantic comedies.
The movie begins with François. A lowly carhop for an expensive restaurant with a crummy little apartment, barely any money and no serious future. These facts don’t bother him because he is going to ask his childhood sweetheart Emilie to marry him. Afterwards, life can only improve. Emilie rejects his proposal immediately. She has no interest in marriage, especially to a loser like him, besides, she just started a bookstore and owes the bank over 30,000 Euros. Then Emilie hits him with the coup de grace of the “lets be friends” speech. Demoralized, François walks the streets of Paris to nurse his broken heart.
Meanwhile, millionaire Pierre Levasseur is having an argument in public with his mistress Elena, a famous fashion model. A tabloid photographer gets a few pictures of it while François walks by the couple. When this incident makes the front page, Pierre’s wife Christine demands to know the truth. Like all cornered, rich, cheating husbands, Pierre lies and it’s quite a whopper; Elena was with the blurred out guy (François). Christine doesn’t believe it yet she is willing to play along because she wants to see him squirm. Christine can too, she owns 60 percent of their joint assets. Faced with little other recourse, Pierre follows through on his fabrication. François is made an offer: live with Elena for 30 days, pretend to be the model’s boyfriend and get paid for it. At first, François thinks it’s an on-camera prank for a TV show but eventually he accepts and only wants enough money to settle Emilie’s debt. Elena is wiser since Pierre has strung her along for two years. She agrees to the arrangement with an asking price of 20 million Euros which is refundable if Pierre divorces Christine within the deadline.
Obviously the situation deteriorates rapidly as jealousy ensues from Elena’s public appearances with François, reports from Pierre’s spies, Christine’s agents heightening Pierre’s fears and Emilie witnessing this without knowing the whole situation. There’s also a very puzzled media wondering why is Elena dating such an unattractive man, including François’ parents.
It would be unfair to say that only the French could successfully execute a tired sitcom premise, but sadly it’s true these days. A comedy this concise couldn’t be made by any of the major American studios for three huge reasons.
- American Ugly Duckling stories have this lazy need to incorporate a mandatory makeover montage. Thankfully Elena doesn’t give François pointers on being more GQ, just advice about what Emilie may be thinking.
- The wife character isn’t a shrill, annoying psychobitch or clueless ditz providing sympathy for Pierre from the audience. Christine knows she’s in control at many levels. She’s probably trying to get her unfaithful husband to decide.
- Finally, I had to applaud the ending which many would criticize as abrupt or sudden instead being drawn out another 10 minutes to punish all the “villains” and reward the “heroes.”
Sorry if my review consists of elements The Valet lacks but Romantic Comedies are cranked out by the numbers in the States. I would still recommend this highly regardless of its national origin because it’s a universal story and as I stated earlier, the execution is what makes the film succeed.