After the many pressures that forced Francis Veber to write a non-Latino villain in the American remake of "The Goat" ("Pure Luck"), the director, probably upset for having 'abdicated', embraced for a long time the idea of a pamphlet against political correctness. "The Closet" was his testimony and on the surface, the film has everything you'd expect from a Veber film. It has the wits, the mild-mannered average Joe, played by Daniel Auteuil portraying another François Pignon, AND the political and social commentary. What else could you expect?
Unfortunately, what certainly looked promising on the paper didn't successfully pass the big-screen test, starting with the main character, François Pignon, a boring accountant (pleonasm?) in a rubber factory. The film opens with a very evocative photo where the poor Pignon is so meek and insignificant that he can't even get in the company picture. He's such a forgettable pawn, that it doesn't surprise us when we learn that he's to be fired. What's more, he's divorced and his son, a typical teenager, ignores him, just like his wife, played by Alexandra Vandernoot. This 'François Pignon' irritated me a little bit, I know he's supposed to be this way to become better at the end, but after"The Dinner Game", no one could have played a more Pignon-esque character than Jacques Villeret, and any post-Dinner Pignon would pale in comparison. Pignons were all unwilling losers, and never lacked flamboyance and personality; the level of pathos injected in Auteuil's character was too big not to fall in the stereotypical trap.
Naturally, it doesn't come as a surprise either that the man contemplates suicide; at that part, we still wait for some laughs to relax the atmosphere. Right before doing the big dive, he's approached by his neighbor who obviously sees a man in need for help. Michel Aumont, another Veber regular, is wonderfully natural and sympathetic and provides what I consider the greatest and most human scenes of the film. He comes up the next day, with THE idea, typically Veberian, to pass Pignon as a homosexual by sending an anonymous fake picture showing him in a gay club to the big boss, Mr. Kopel (Jean Rochefort). It would naturally serve as a warning, since the main product of the company is condoms. We accept the logic with even more enthusiasm that he's not supposed to act 'gay', it's all in the eyes of the employees. That was the cleverest touch of the film, but not a surprise, since Veber always respected the intelligence of the viewer.
And it's remarkable how the reputation of one man precedes the perception, the first step succeeds as he's not fired, then he's seen in a different way, he's not dull anymore, but weird. His reluctance to be part of the rugby team becomes understandable, and any attempt to bully him can be a case of homophobia. The problem is that we can't go too far with that. Had the movie exaggerated a little bit, it would have been proved that being gay can somewhat help, which would have spoken a much wider statement about 'being part of a community'. And that's my problem with the film, while "The Closet" could have been a remarkable denunciation of the lobbying system, it remains a timid little comedy, a farce with no subtlety nonetheless especially when it tackles François' gay facade, homophobia-immune at work but not outside. It could have been more dramatic or more comedic, even if it flirted with the 'Birdcage' spirit (a much funnier film at the end, and no less written by Veber)
As an attempt to compensate the shortness of the main story, Veber comes up with a rather unnecessary subplot involving Depardieu's character, Felix Santini, a guy who's warned by Thierry Lhermitte about his constant homophobic remarks. I know it was supposed to be funny, but it looked for me as a remake of the 'Dinner Game' where we're supposed to root for the plotters. I couldn't. When Felix was yelling racist remarks, I felt it was only Veber trying to make him look bad, and conveniently, when a black employee told Lhermitte that he was going too far with Felix, he changed his mind after learning about the racist remark. I still felt sorry for Felix, and I don't think it was a good idea to have Lhermitte, playing again a cunning mean-spirited guy (with the same bald sidekick). Felix is not a totally unlovable idiot but I wish the movie went farther with Pignon, rather than him.
By the way, the presence of Lhermitte, Rochefort or other stars also annoyed me because their characters were not important enough to need important actors; even Lhermitte had nothing to do in the poster. It's like Veber wanted to exploit the commercial success of "The Dinner Game" for "The Closet", but had it kept the same spirit, it would have worked. Not that the film is a failure, but it just can't be compared to its glorious predecessors if only in the characterization's department. Pignon gained more confidence but was it necessary to turn his wife into a sort of one-dimensional villain to make him feel good? Would the son be suddenly proud of him, just because he's in a gay pride? Apparently, being original is the key to popularity, although it's still guided by the others' perceptions, from his wife's shallowness to his son's superficiality, it seems that everything is guided by the way you're seen.
The film could have been much better, had it had the guts to go further in its introspection, it's an interesting examination of the ways professional relationships are as undermined by general perceptions as in society, but it just lost too much time on the Depardieu-Lhermitte subplot to enrich the most interesting aspect in Pignon's life, making his metamorphosis too quick to be believable. A minor Veber film but still better than many comedies made today.
