Mi gran fiesta judía

I was really excited to watch this. Gad Elmaleh is quiet possibly my favorite stand-up comedian. He's unfortunately not that well (quasi not known at all) outside France, or maybe other French-speaking countries, and I would not like at all this film to introduce him to other countries, since this is an extremely mediocre work from one of the funniest people alive.

Gad Elmaleh writes, directs and acts, and I thought oh well...that's brilliant! That never happened, he only did acting before, and now he'll have the whole film under control, and this is going to be great! I was immensely disappointed.

This is, unfortunately, the kind of comedy where it's enough to watch the trailer, because there is nothing more really in the film. I nearly turned the film off after half an hour, since I only smiled a few times, and hey, there is a bit of comedy in every film nowadays, even horror films.... so that means I wouldn't have realized that it was a comedy if I didn't know about it beforehand. Fortunately after the first 30 minutes the film gets better. There will be a few 'gentle' laughs, but nothing compared to to his stand-up acts where I was crying from laughter. Interestingly enough enough there is a part where he uses one of his funniest and most famous sentence from one of his stand-up shows...and it just doesn't work, which shows that the whole thing is far from that very best Gad Elmaleh can do.

Secondly, maybe less important, but extremely annoying is the terrible editing. It's the problem throughout the whole film: in one shot the hand is up, in the next one it's down. Sometimes they could even change their hair style in the split second. I believe the reason for this is a rushed post-production, but anyways it's there, it can be noticed and it's extremely annoying.

The truth is that the film doesn't know what it wants to be: at the same time it's a drama about family, friendship, success and a comedy. The problem is that the dramatic part, although pretty decent considering that this is Elmaleh's first film, is still unoriginal with no particular surprises. As for the comedy part, just read again the third paragraph. So what is there left? A film that is just flat, with too many uninteresting parts. The only thing that kept me watching was Elmaleh himself, and only because in every scene of his I said to myself: "I know this guy. He's usually extremely funny. I'll wait, there sure will be hilarious moments". And I waited for 90 minutes and nothing happened. Elmaleh is very very far from his best, and if you do not know who he is, then I don't think you should even start considering watching this film.

For everyone that knows a little bit about french and Moroccan culture, this movie is INCREDIBLY FUNNY! I spent the whole movie laughing. It's amazing how they created such a charming and funny character (Gad Elmaleh), that is a caricature of the Moroccan millionaire, who lives in Paris and try to be part of the Parisian snobbish and pallid hight society, without losing his essence. I absolutely loved this movie! It's real, it's simple, unpretentious and it shows two different cultures through characters that are precise stereotypes. I strongly recommend to everyone that is not a sad 'intellectual', that likes depressive movies, with depressive characters, that only sees negative things about life. This movie is for those who are happy, optimist and prefer laugh than cry!

"Pun is the poor man's wit" was a quote I always appreciated from the film "Ridicule". And it's true, French language is so rich that no matter how funny or smile-inducing it is, a pun is such an easy (and cheap) way to make you laugh that it's almost counter-productive.

But I guess you're allowed to one or two exceptions per movie, take "La Vérité Si Je Mens 2", a highly superior comedy centering on French Sephardic community: the future in-laws discuss about the wedding, the pun works because the wealthy and mildly snobbish bride's parents think they deal with people from the same milieu, so when the bride's mother suggests as a caterer the prestigious 'Lenôtre', which literally means in French 'ours', the other mother, played by Gladys Cohen, naturally asks his name, it goes on like a "Who's on First" routine but it's the only pun-related gag, and a damn good one. Basically, you multiply this effect by one-hundred and you get "Coco", which is not good.

Indeed, in a good comedy, gags should be a vehicle to the plot, in the bad, it's the opposite, except if you get to the level of Abrahams and Zucker parodies or the Marx Brothers films but in the case of "Coco", it's just too much patience-challenging. When it's not the mother mispronouncing a word, you have the main character Simon Bensoussan aka Coco distorting French language and using neologisms out of anger or hip-snob-post-modern slickness. We also have him brainstorming with his merchandising expert friend on the new brandname to give to his sparkling water, or the customized yarmunkles ('kippa' in French) to wear to wear during his son's communion: and I guess, we should all go ha-ha-ha when hearing the word Kipaa-cabana.

It's really frustrating when a comedy relies on the same comical effect, and it proves one thing true: you can't build a movie out on a sketch, no matter how funny it is. "Coco" was adapted from a hilarious sketch about an egomaniac, wealthy Sephardic Jew who wanted to celebrate the greatest bar mitzvah for his son. He's so creatively over-the-top that the sketch escalates to sheer zaniness: he'll make a table positioning software (to avoid classic family conflicts), he won't hire a photographer, but a sculptor, his son will make an entrance by helicopter. But the best is still to come at the end, he wants to keep secret the guest star's name, because… he hates to brag. That's as perfect a punch-line as the sketch gets, and I don't think there was any need for further development.

But it seems like Gad El Maleh, the most popular comedian of his generation, didn't learn the "Chouchou" lesson, another great sketch character (a transvestite with Arabic background) who inspired a weak film in 2004. "Chouchou" had pleasant and likable characters but no story, and an extremely weak and annoying antagonist, the film was a hit because it was one of the first El Maleh's leading roles, and everyone was expecting quality gags. The audience wasn't fooled though by "Coco", as the film had an even more one-dimensional protagonist: a rich obnoxious self-important businessman who wants to impress everyone through his bar mitzvahs's son. In 2009, in the midst of the economical crisis, it better had to be funny and had a good story to tell.

Many movies center on a wedding, and the bar-mitzvah is such an important event it can call for a good film, but there's a problem: the character who should be the most concerned by the plot is nowhere. We hardly see the son and we don't really care about him because the story doesn't make us care, it's the father's show. When the film finally decides to give the son some substance, it's too late, we're just too exhausted by Coco's antics and his obsessions that the final father-and-son moment at the rink doesn't feel emotionally rewarding, but rather contrived. At least, the film should've stayed focused on Coco and reveal to us the roots of his egomania. Was it some childhood episode? A lack of affection from his mother? A personality totally opposite to the one he constantly displays?

The soul of comedy is unpredictability: any surprise, any twist in the story would've been most welcome; instead, we have a film about an unlikable character, a seemingly loving father who loves himself a bit more, surrounded by characters who can only 'endure' him without daring to steal his thunder. The wife's needed more development as in the film, she mostly sounds like a gold-digger turned into an angry housewife. At the end, the only two sympathetic characters were the Arab driver and the mother, played again by Gladys Cohen. She's not the stereotypical hot-headed and overly-loving Jewish mother, she wants her son to be more restrained and dedicated to his family, and it's a pity that the script (and its abundance of mispronounced one-liners) constantly makes a fool of such a sweet and endearing character.

It's a pity indeed because the film had the potential in the 'heart' department: centering on Family, featuring many friendship scenes between Arab and Jewish characters... but overall, "Coco" fails again to establish a viable transition from stage to screen, it's incredible that such a charismatic and beloved comedian as Gad can't pull a 'serious' comedic performance. As funny and likable as he is, he's not much of a director when it comes to the big format, and maybe he sinned by his own character's megalomania and should have allowed other screenwriters and a talented director to assist him.

And that's probably the worst aspect of the film, it's not even unpleasant because it features an unlikable character and a plot that insults our intelligence, it's also an insult to all the wannabe screenwriters and directors who could make better movies if they had Gad's "connections". That's too many negative vibes for one movie.

The truth may be hard to cope with, but... Coco is a drama. If you're a genuine movie-lover it is impossible not to shed a tear (or buckets of tears) when you watch this "opus". The plot is non existent, the directing is non existent and the acting is even worse. Some may argue that Gad Elmaleh wanted the audience to laugh. I don't think so. This man has got talent and it's impossible to admit that anything may be funny in this film. Let me tell you the truth... Mr Elmaleh is sick of the cinema industry, so he has made a movie which is a statement about the state of dereliction of the filmmakers in France. He wanted us to cry about that long lost past, when French films were done by people like Renoir, Prevert, Truffeau etc. Today, we must be aware of this very sad reality: French cinema is dead. Thank you Mr Elmaleh for this ultimate proof of yours. From now on we will mourn our "Paradis Perdu".

Yes I agree with the two other comments it is indeed not a good movie.

I have laugh twice during the movie, and without noticing the movie.

However, french cinema is far from dead like any countries very good and very bad movies come out. There are tonnes of good french movies that came out recently! Gad Elmaleh is one of the funniest comedians on stage, my favourite by far. Anyone that speaks fluent french should watch his shows they are amazing, I laugh all the way. This is why I took the risk to watch this movie beside disappointing critics, and they were right it is not a good movie and it is definitely not funny.

*** happens I am sure Gad will be the first one to admit that he did not do a great job with this one. I still have hopes for him!