Connasse, princesse des coeurs

Camille Cottin est vraiment comique dans ce film inusité Le dialogue est très rapide, faut s'y faire !

Camille Cottin is amazingly funny in this unusual style of comedy !

I crave for Camille Cottin, the actress who is the lead here. She is also famous for performing in a mini series shown on Canal Pjus channel where she plays in a hidden camera scheme with very very funny situations. Such as this one, in this film, where she is a sort of weird, lunatic and offensive Young woman dreaming of the Prince Harry and for whom she will stop at anything - and I mean ANYTHING - to achieve her dream. Entirely shot in hidden camera, this feature is itself an outstanding performance. This actress is also very daring, courageous, such as in the scene where she walks among the Horse Guards, with the 7 feet tall impressive horses all around her, with the feeling that they were going to crush her. Whao!!! And this very funny sequence where she climbs the Buckingham Palace fence to meet Prince Harry, and when some policemen finally arrive to arrest her. Camille Cottin later said off screen that, at start, when she grabbed the palace fence, NO ONE tried to prevent her to do that. So this lack of reaction from the authorities would have jeopardize the entire sequence. The ironic thing in this is that, at the beginning, all the shooting crew was afraid of the impossibility they would have met in approaching the Buckingham Palace fence...And the policemen finally took several minutes to arrive to ACTUALLY arrest her. A situation for which every one in the film crew was prepared for to enhance the screenplay.

Whether you enjoy this movie is largely a function of whether you like leading lady Camille Cottin's comedy-sketch series of the same name, in which she incarnates in slightly exaggerated form the archetypical snobbery and obnoxious bad feeling that do in fact reign in a certain loud part of the Parisian population. With her hidden camera she trolls unsuspecting pedestrians just going about their business, subjecting them to a concentrated dose of the exasperating whims of that archetype (but don't get too outraged: she does reveal the camera to them after the filming, and they mostly laugh). Some people just don't find that sort of thing funny.

The Canal+ series is a "top of the hour" filler with a few situationally-linked trollings over several minutes, which is about all anyone can handle of such one-liner standalones. As such, even a true fan instinctively approaches this 80-minute compilation of the same with some degree of skepticism. But if one goes in without expecting too much, one will be in for a pleasant surprise. For the writers actually managed to make, from a series of quick and largely imposed (though Cottin herself is clearly working from a general script/storyboard) hidden-camera sketches, a more or less coherent plot. It's not an especially captivating or complex story, but the feat of weaving a story in such a manner is fascinating enough to hold our attention.

Perhaps more impressively, in so doing, they managed to make this "connasse" (roughly translated as "stupid b****"), who truly lives up to that epithet, a marginally sympathetic character. She's obnoxious, clueless, self-centered and emotionally unstable. At the same time, she's energetic, smiley, optimistic and goal-oriented. It's a mix of defects and good qualities as recognizably human as anyone else's. It's probably not a mix we would ever see in real life, and knowing this, her character does run the limits of Uncanny Valley. But the filmmakers are aware of this, and that's part of the point, part of what makes it funny.

Overall I'd say it's worth a try. I'm not too sure about re-watch value, but try a few episodes of the Canal+ sketch and see if it tickles you. If so, and if you can suspend disbelief for about an hour and twenty minutes, this will be a nice little diversion.

A disappointing cinematographic adaptation of the excellent daily mini-series which was aired on the French tv channel Canal+ around 2012/2013, with 2 minutes per episode: Connasse (2013).

In Connasse, princesse des coeurs (2015), we easily recognize the offbeat and wacky atmosphere of the mini-series but the 80-minutes adaptation is quite laborious and tiresome.

Most people seem to be good sports about this woman who at first is very annoying. Well actually the "character" is consistent on being annoying. But she has to be, to achieve her goal. Which is making money doing nothing. Although breaking into the Palace should not be considered as nothing.

The reality thing might have gone too far for some, but obviously not far enough for others. You may wonder how and where cameras where being placed, though some seem to have been in bags or so small you might not be able to see them. If being offensive can be considered fun, than you might have a hoot with this, if that doesn't float your boat, you shouldn't waste your time with this