Films: Please, Please Me!

Please, Please Me!
Fais-moi plaisir!

France, 2009, 92 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Comedy, Foreign, Romance
Program: Contemporary World Cinema
Language: French English Subtitles

DIRECTOR: Emmanuel Mouret
Producer: Frédéric Niedermayer
Editor: Martial Salomon
Screenwriter: Emmanuel Mouret
Cinematographer: Laurent Desmet
Principal Cast: Emmanuel Mouret, Judith Godreche, Deborah Francois, Frederique Bel, Dany Brillant

Slapstick offsets a sweet strain of angst in this French comedy about love and fidelity amid a band of sex-obsessed Parisians. Prolific writer/director/actor Emmanuel Mouret (Shall We Kiss? SDFF 31) combines the sensibilities of Woody Allen with those of Harold Lloyd.
A dithering ringer for the young Catherine Deneuve, Frederique Bel plays Ariane, a nurse who decides that her nutty beloved, Jean-Jacques (Mouret), is fantasizing about another woman. She insists he have an affair with her in order to cure him of this supposed preoccupation and save their relationship. What neither of them knows is that the woman in question happens to be the daughter of the French president. In his earnest desire to please his girlfriend, Jean-Jacques forges ahead, intent on consummating the new relationship. But things run less smoothly than the French reputation for amour would suggest.
What follows is a series of sight-gag obstacles that include a long, hilarious encounter between a sheer curtain and our hero’s zipper, an access code almost as long as the square root of pi, and a run-in with an automated elevator that brings to mind Hal from 2001. There are echoes of Mr. Bean in Mouret’s squeamish politeness and unwitting faux pas and a hint of the delirious comedic swoons of Peter Sellers in the deadpan delivery, but it’s all branded with the endearingly dimwitted sincerity that has become his distinct trademark.

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