(2003)
3
Josh Ralske
Pierre Salvadori's Après vous... is a fairly entertaining French farce, greatly abetted by the strong presence of the redoubtable Daniel Auteuil as the harried Antoine and the undeniable offbeat charms of Sandrine Kiberlain as Blanche, the woman he finds himself falling for, to his dismay. In Louis, meanwhile, Salvadori and José Garcia, who plays the character, have created an effective comic foil. While there's little that's fresh or surprising about the plot, the strength of the performances and the friction created by making Louis essentially unlikable lend the film just enough edge to make it above average entertainment. The basic story line (a bourgeois gentleman rescues and brings home a scruffy loser who turns his life upside down) brings up unfortunate but unavoidable allusions to Jean Renoir's brilliant Boudu Saved From Drowning, which this charming but slight film cannot sustain. Aside from Auteuil's innate soulfulness and Kiberlain's incandescence, there are a couple of memorable comic scenes, including an early scene in which Louis hides in the backseat of Antoine's car while Antoine ad-libs the suicide note to Louis' grandmother, and the scene in which Antoine surreptitiously coaches Louis through his job interview at the restaurant. These scenes are the comedic highlights of what is otherwise a passable, genteel example of a timeworn genre.
Après Vous... on AllMovie
Après Vous... (2003)
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