Après Vous (2003)

This has to be, no contest, the best restaurant-based movie since Claude Sautet persuaded Yves Montand and Jacques Villeret to don monkey suits for 'Garcon'. They get the mix just right between humor and pathos and although it's based on a dubious premise for the 21st century - maitre d' Auteuil spots Garcia trying to top himself, intervenes and then, against all the odds of cynicism, feels obliged to 'adopt' him and straighten out his life - it still works. This straightening out includes fixing up klux Garcia with a job as sommelier at Auteuil's restaurant which means in turn that Garcia must compete in an interview/audition with people who have actually worked as sommeliers. Given that Garcia knows as much about wine as Ludivine Sagnier knows about acting with her clothes on the audition is a hoot, with Auteuil, sitting in, natch, on the interview and attempting to coach Garcia surreptitiously. The main reason that Garcia was interested in running out of breath was the fact that he'd been dumped by a girl friend and nothing will do but that Auteuil must intervene once more and attempt to win back the ex-girl friend, who is now involved with someone else. Not unnaturally, Auteuil begins to fall in love with said girl friend which is not exactly hard given that she is played by Sandrine Kiberlain, a great actress with an elusive beauty which is hard to classify. She doesn't do chocolate-box like Audrey Tautou, she doesn't do chic like Catherine Deneuve, she doesn't do warmth like Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant and she most certainly doesn't do slut like Ludivine Sagnier, whatever she does she does it to a fare-thee-well and if you don't believe me ask that swine Vincent Lindon, who married her before I could get there first (just kidding, Vince, you're a great actor yourself if anybody asks you but WHY did you have to take her off the market?). This complication gives the movie an extra fillip, a touch of the Cyrano de Bergeracs, with Auteuil pressing a claim for a guy who is now, to all intents and purposes, a rival, although unlike Cyrano, who has been in love with Roxanne all his life and is himself unattached, Auteuil is - or was - in a happy relationship until these life-changing events. All in all a very fine movie worth a couple of hours of anyone's time provided they are motivated by people and the Human Condition and not Matrix-type fx. 9/10