Un couple épatant

Although "Un couple épatant" is just 1 installment of Belvaux's impressive "Trilogy," I'm going to review it as a standalone film. This is because Belvaux deliberately made each film very different in story, genre and style, so we can guess that he intended for each film to be its own independent "dot" which we, the audience, must connect on our own time. Whether you're watching all three, or just this 1, here's what you can expect...

"Un couple épatant" is broadly a romantic comedy. But it has a very characteristic bite to it. The film is marketed in the USA with the title "An Amazing Couple", but the literal translation is more like "a shocking/unconventional couple." That might better prepare you for what is to come. The story hits the ground running and doesn't let up for a second. In the opening scenes we see that our hero "Alain" (François Morel) learns that he may have a terminal condition. He loves his wife deeply and wants to protect her from worry, so he hides this knowledge by telling her a passing lie. However our heroine "Cécile," who also loves her husband incontrovertibly, catches him in this tiny fib and this sets off a chain reaction of bigger lies & deception. In a WONDERFULLY orchestrated Shakespearean comedy of errors, these deceptions escalate to outright paranoia as Cécile's suspicious nature itself arouses Alain's suspicious nature, and bizarre coincidences give off appearances that each is having an extramarital affair. As each scene gives rise to more & more hysteria, we reach a fever pitch where actual infidelity, violence and murder aren't out of the question.

Maybe now you understand the title of my review. This is a dark, dark comedy. A romcom for cynics or at least for people who can laugh at the dirty underbelly of love. The tension builds almost painfully, even though we can't help but chuckle at how bizarrely perfect this series of events is. It brings to mind the great writer/director Francis Veber ("La cage aux folles"/"Birdcage") as far as mapping out a wonderfully tangled web of lies and misunderstandings. And although I wouldn't call this laugh-out-loud funny, I would definitely say this is one of the most cleverly written romantic comedies of its decade.

A few words about the acting and casting. François Morel is absolutely perfect as our hero Alain, portraying the role with a sort of goofiness while at the same time being intelligent and painfully intense. His schtick is that he is narrating his own life by talking into a small tape recorder the whole time, and this technique works magnificently; we really see and hear him losing his mind in a hilarious way.

Ornella Muti ...wow, a moment of silence for the talented and supernaturally beautiful Ornella Muti (Emperor Ming's daughter in 1980's "Flash Gordon"!)... um where was I? Right. Ornella Muti plays her role very seriously, with no hint of any comedic twang, and this lends itself to a very unusual and bipolar sort of comedy. Just as François's scenes are goofy and surreal, Ornella's scenes are powerfully gritty and realistic. If you grasp what this film (and the entire Trilogy) is trying to do--portray the same reality in starkly different ways--then you'll get it. Is this a romantic comedy, or is it a romantic horror story? Both at the same time.

There are supporting roles (actors who play major roles in the other 2 films) which are expertly played, but I have to make a special note of Gilbert Melki who plays the villain "Pascal". Wow. At first I hated him. He hits us with an extremely menacing, threatening, outright loathsome character... especially if you know his backstory from Part 1. But after the film ended I realized that he was perfect for the role. This story really did need an element of dark menace otherwise it would've been too breezy and silly for what it sets out to accomplish. But the character Pascal, as much as you want to reach into your screen and punch him, is what pulls this together and ties it in with the rest of the trilogy.

Yes, this is a "romcom". But it's a romcom in the same way that Tang is orange juice. In other words, beware of toxic additives. Things are not what they seem.

The Belgian director's trilogy, number two as shown in the US, but shown first in French theaters, this is a domestic comedy (the title is ironic) about a hypochondriac and increasingly paranoid small tech business owner Alain (Francois Morel) who runs around hiding from his wife that he's going to have a very minor operation because he absurdly thinks it's going to be the death of him. His wife Cecile (Ornella Muti) senses that he's sneaking around and, thinking he's having an affair, gets her friend Agnes' cop husband (Gilbert Melki) to follow him, which makes him more paranoid. Eventually things end up at the chalet where Belvaux's escaped political prisoner character (central in the Cavale/On the Run panel) is hiding--the chalet being the main link with other episodes. This is generally and not without reason considered the weakest of the three films in The Trilogy. It's thin and repetitious pretty much throughout, and though poised as a comedy, its main character's obsession with death is hardly funny.

As one French critic wrote, he might have done better if he'd just made one good film. Mahohla Dargis wrote that 'The Trilogy' was "more conceptually fascinating than cinematically engaging." "'The Trilogy'" (she also wrote) "is nothing if not a logistical coup. Inspired by the way genre determines meaning, Belvaux used three editing teams to shape his overlapping stories and the results are (these three films)." In the third, which I haven't seen yet, 'Apres la vie'/'After the Life,' the genre is drama (or melodrama) and in it Melki, the cop, falls in love with Cecile, the wife who's hired him to investigate her husband. It's generally agreed that Melki shines in 'The Trilogy'. I also like Catheriine Frot, who is important in 'Cavale.'

Belvaux's 'Trilogy' is good potential material for a film course (comparison of genres, alternate takes, etc.), but the basic content of each film could be better. The hope with Belvaux's 'Trilogy' has to be that the whole is more than the parts.

A few minutes into the movie «Un couple épatant», after you recover from the startling first impression and acknowledge a categorical change of genre in the second installment of Lucas Belvaux's trilogy, the film flows at a rapid pace, as the story advances and unravels the chain of misunderstandings that lead the titular couple to suspect each other of adultery. Belvaux goes from the violent drama of "«Cavale» to the comedy of errors with precise humor and feline grace, and those who have seen the first installment will know that there is a dramatic background, represented by the characters of that other story. However, even without knowing their personal histories in depth (the man hiding in a country house, the arrested woman, the drug addict and her policeman husband), all fit like clockwork in this story: lawyer Alain (Morel), an obsessive hypochondriac, dramatizes a minor surgery and hides it from his wife Cécile (Muti). He begins to dictate his last will to a tape recorder (a testament that is modified every time his affection for his inheritors changes, according to the plot twists) and entangles his loyal secretary Claire (Mairesse) and his medical friend (Mazzinghi) in the farce. But Cécile smells something fishy and does not sit on her hands: she hires the services of policeman Pascal (Melki). Things get more and more complicated with every gesture, word or action, which have an opposite charge to the real one, according to each spouse's perception. Belvaux's narrative skill is in top form and leaves us curious about the closing of the trilogy. After this change of register, from a stark drama to a paranoid comedy, my curiosity about the outcome was awakened.

This film (which can be seen as a standalone film) is part of a trilogy. Three films, not consecutive, but parallel. Three stories, simultaneous, with same actors, same characters. Main actors in one film are secondary actors in the two others. There are common scenes between each movie, but always shown in a different way, a different point of vue.

"Un couple epatant" is a comedy, with (Ornella Muti/Francois Morel),"Cavale" is a thriller, with (Lucas Belvaux/Catherine Frot), and "Apres la vie" is a drama, with (Gilbert Melki/Dominique Blanc).

You can see only one or two of these movies, but it is really better to see all of them, as each one enlights some dark moments of the two others. The supposed order is the one i used, but you can see these films in any order.

Individually speaking, the films are average (except "Apres la vie", the best one), but globally the experience is very good and very exciting.

I'm not sure how "Two" could be the 1st instalment of a trilogy, but none-the-less I watched it after (my reviewed) "On the Run" (or 'One').

Hypochondriac compulsives always have the potential to make good comedy subjects and (can't remember the character's name) a possible cancer scare causes him to update his will and testament constantly on his portable voice recorder. Hiding his paranoia from his wife naturally causes erratic behaviour, and thinking a mistress being involved she employs a police friend to investigate.

It is weaker than the terrific thriller of On The Run, but this often farcical comedy of modern errors is fast-moving, tipping its hat occasionally to Jacques Tati and has frenetic and furtive people dashing about in cars. It all gets a little messy and complex and after a while the connection with On the Run blurs with this one.

Some scenes have been edited into 'Two' - unfortunately, they don't make any revelations but, neither do they detract. It's actually a good way to re-use locations (the alpine lodge, for example), cars even and many props and of course, actors. This allows cross-continuity but might all seem a just a bit too clever.

I'm looking forward to the 3rd part (Afterlife) to see how this aspect gets taken further and hopefully, to see another terrific film in its own right.