Le Vilain (2009)
Directed by Albert Dupontel

Film Review

Over the past decade, Albert Dupontel has steadily earned a reputation as one of the most talented and versatile actors in French cinema, equally at home in straight dramatic roles (Michel Deville's La Maladie de Sachs) as in outrageous comedic parts (Valérie Guignabodet's Monique).  He is also emerging as one of the country's most original mainstream filmmakers, his distinctive off-the-wall comedies providing a very welcome alternative to the increasingly banal and unfunny comic offerings from his contemporaries.

Le Vilain is Dupontel's fourth directorial outing, and possibly his best - a completely unhinged mix of surreal farce and black comedy in which a dear old lady with a ruthless streak (and an uncanny resemblance to the present British monarch) attempts to rehabilitate her wayward son.  As in Dupontel's previous three films -  Bernie (1996), Le Créateur (1999) and Enfermés dehors (2006) - this latest frenetic romp is a heady concoction of acerbic humour and traditional burlesque which will have you in stitches.  It is so quirky that it is hard to sum up, but you might describe it is as a punk Tarantino-inspired homage to Arsenic and Old Lace and The Ladykillers.

In this mad, mad world (in which the main threat comes from psychopathic tortoises), Dupontel is best suited to play the lead character (the sadistic trigger happy hoodlum) opposite the equally talented Catherine Frot (as his cunning mum).  Here, Frot is made up to look forty years older than she really is and is virtually unrecognisable beneath the grey curls and latex, yet her aptitude for playing sly folcoche characters makes her an ideal casting choice.  Dupontel and Frot spark of each other superbly, rendering the rest of the cast (killer tortoise excluded) pretty superfluous.   Le Vilain is easily one of the weirdest French comedies in recent years.

Film Synopsis

An elderly widow, Maniette Thomas, is surprised when a wild-looking stranger turns up on her doorstep.  She can hardly believe it is her son Sidney, the little rascal she hasn't seen for twenty years.  It seems her wayward offspring needs somewhere to stay so naturally she offers him a place in her home.  Such is her trusting nature that it takes the naive old woman a while to discover Sidney's true nature.  Far from being a respectable boy, as she had hoped, it appears he has ended up as a bad 'un, the kind who makes a habit of robbing banks.  When she finds this out, Madame Thomas takes it upon herself to make a reformed character of her son and turn him into a model citizen.  She blames herself for the way her boy has turned out, but it is not too late for her to correct the mistake.  Oddly, Sidney is reluctant to change his ways as he rather likes being a crook.  Before they know it, the badly behaved forty-year-old and his mother are locked in a fierce battle, neither willing to concede an inch of ground to the other...