De l'autre côté du lit (2009)
Directed by Pascale Pouzadoux

Film Review

The actress Pascale Pouzadoux made a fair stab as a director with her debut feature Toutes les filles sont folles (2003) but seems to have committed the artistic equivalent of harakiri with this film's follow-up, a gloriously inept adaptation of a novel by Alix Girod de L'Ain.  Even if it had been made in the 1990s, De l'autre côté du lit would have appeared dated and clichéd; in 2009 it looks positively decrepit, like something you'd expect to unearth in a Neolithic burial site.

Lumbered with two of the most egregious stereotypes you can imagine as the main protagonists, and with a ludicrously contrived plot that leaves no addled-headed cliché unturned, the film might just have been bearable had it been directed with a modicum of sophistication and a touch of irony in the lead actors' performances.  Alas, neither of the latter is detectable and the film is about as tiresome and offensive as its dismal premise will allow it to be.  Even when the ink was still dry on their respective contracts, Dany Boon (Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis) and Sophie Marceau (Les Femmes de l'ombre) must have known that they would have an impossible job salvaging this comedy disaster, and so they just treated it as it deserved, as a tedious piece of pantomime for idiots living in a timewarp.  It says something that their performances, whilst unpardonably awful, are the best thing the film has going for it.  If either Boon or Marceau had taken this seriously for one moment it would have been about as enjoyable as being buried alive.

Film Synopsis

After ten years of married life, Ariane and Hugo are in danger of slipping into a predictable routine that could be fatal for both their careers and their future together.  They therefore agree to swap their jobs for one year.  She will take over his job as the manager of a firm that rents out construction equipment.  He will take her role as housewife and jewellery salesperson.  It all sounds very simple in theory.  Practice is quite a different matter...