LE DINER DES CONS
France, 1998, 80 minutes, Colour.
Jacques Villeret, Thierry Lhermitte, Frances Huster.
Directed by Francis Veber.
Le Diner Des Cons was a great popular success in France in the late 90s (with talk of its being adapted for the American screen by Woody Allen). Francis Veber has spent a lifetime creating pleasant farces about odd couples. His films include The Fugitives (Americanised with Three Fugitives) as well as La Cage Aux Folles.
He has imaginative set-ups to bring his odd characters together. This time a group of snobbish businessmen invites people they consider as eccentric idiots to dinner to get them talking and make fools of themselves. One of the group discovers a tax officer whose hobby is to make models of famous edifices out of matches. When he comes to dinner, the host has ricked his back at golf and cannot go out. The alleged idiot stays, offers to help, makes so many mistakes and messing things up by phone calls, misinterpreting situations, impersonating people_
The film is very funny at times with Jacques Villeret as the "idiot", a touch snobbish himself, sure of many aspects of his own personality, yet able to make a mess of so many things. Thierry Lhermitte is the straight man, the egotistical man who wants to make a fool of others, his wife has left him, who is intolerant of people hurting him but does not hesitate to mock others.
The film takes place over one evening, at the home of the publisher with the bad back. The farcical situations involve his wife, his mistress, the man from whom he stole his wife but who is a friend, a tax collector who is able to give information as to where the wife might be - but who does a swift appraisal and is about to charge the publisher with tax fraud.
The characters are very well performed, the farcical situations humorous and, while seemingly over the top, are performed in a realistic way which makes them all the more humorous.
1. The popularity of the film? The characters? The situations? The farcical aspects? The hurtful aspects, kindliness overcoming?
2. The French settings, the interior of the house - the film based on a play, opening out the dialogue and the action but remaining within the house? Musical score?
3. The title, the indication of the theme? The group who consider themselves superior, the way they talked with one another, condescending and patronising? Their collecting the eccentric fools, having them to dinner, getting them to talk, for example the man with the boomerangs and his long harangue about their use in Australia?
4. Brochant and his plan, the advice about M'sieur Pignon, inviting him to come first to his apartment? His laughing at him before he arrived? Pignon arriving but Brochant with his bad back? Pignon and his concern, with the doctor? His helping, carrying him, falling on him? The mix-ups, especially with the answering machine saying that Brochant's wife had left him? His trying not to listen, his wanting to intervene? The phone calls, especially the mistress? Pignon mixing up the mistress with the wife and telling her a story and ousting her? The novelist and Pignon impersonating the film producer, hanging up at the wrong time, ringing back? The novelist coming over, seeing the situation, his laughter? Brochant's discomfort? The arrival of the mistress and the realisation of wrong identity? The plan to get the tax auditor over to find the address and phone number of where the wife might be? The watching of the football and the complexities? The tax man, his manner, the meal? Their having hidden the paintings and his discovering them? His talk about tax situations, his eagle eye, supported by Pignon? The phone call to the man-about-town, discovering that the tax auditor's wife was there, his upset, his talking to her on the phone? The wife and her phone call, the accident? In hospital - and Pignon's sympathetic call, persuading her to forgive her husband, talking about his kindness? Her ringing back and his answering the phone and giving the plot away - and the immediate ending?
5. Pignon, his work, his wife running out on him, his sadness and loneliness? His considering the other man an idiot? His being flattered to be invited to the dinner, the possibility of a book, his photos of his matchstick buildings? His hurrying, the arrival, putting his foot in it, wanting to be kind, brainwaves, wrong timing, hanging up the phone, getting too involved in what he was talking about on the phone, especially buying the rights of the novel? His overdoing it with the mistress, the phone call to the wife? His explanation to the wife about Brochant and his overlooking the rudeness and how hurt he had been by the evening?
6. Brochant, straight man, insensitive? His going along with all the plans, his growing exasperation throughout the night at all the mistakes? Leblanc coming over, their plans, the desperation with the tax inspector? Hiding the paintings? The accident - and everything seeming to come together? His change of heart? His admitting to Pignon that he was a fool and that he ought to invite him to dinner and Brochant himself would be the idiot?
7. Leblanc, the marriage situation, the film rights, the novel, his coming over, his laughter, trying to help with the collaboration?
8. The wife, her background, her exasperation with Brochant? Her disgust at the idiots' dinner? Her coming back, ousted? The possibility of her going to the tax evader? The accident, in hospital, listening to the story of her husband?
9. The mistress, Brochant and his irritation with her, the mix-up with her name, her coming over, her being insulted?
10. The tax collector, his love for football, his demanding Pignon barrack for his team? The dinner, the address, his tax appraisal, the disturbance when discovering his wife was with his client?
11. The French and their success at farce, farcical situations, timing? The importance of developing sympathetic and unsympathetic to give a vitality and meaning to the farce?
