Comme des garçons

I saw by chance this French crowd pleaser on a long distance flight, I would otherwise not have seen it, as it was barely released anywhere. It is very enjoyable and entertaining. In 1969, Paul, a lothario sports journalist in a local newspaper of the French city of Reims, decides to organize for publicity reasons a women football team. And his secretary, the shy but beautiful Emmanuelle, will turn out to be one of the team's stars. The main actress, the very pretty Vanessa Guide, is a revelation. Nice period recreation also. A letdown is that the journalist's character is quite grating. Based, with a lot of liberties, on a true story of the first female football team in France.

This would have been an enjoyable movie if Fabrice Luchini had the role played by Max Boublil, who, to say the least, is an epic of miscasting, if miscasting can come in epics. He is a TV actor who doesn't seem to realize he isn't on TV. Just ghastly. Boublil ruins each and every scene he comes close to by endlessly being over the top. It could have been fun, but with this guy in the lead it is reduced to the worst of TV comedy, which is very bad indeed.