La fée

Enchanting. The first half had some real laugh out loud scenes. 2nd half had some incongruities ... and sort of lost it's way. There was - I think - an over-arching philosophical point maintained throughout (about how best to handle what we wish for), but I don't think one watches an Abel & Gordon movie for the philosophical point as much as to experience the brilliant physicality and originality of their presentation.

Once again the performing/writing and directing team of Abel, Gordon, and Romy deliver a sweet, gentle, charming comedy, that while having dialogue, is most akin to the silent comedy classics.

As with their earlier films "L'iceberg" and "Rumba", the film is a hit and miss affair - but with many more hits than misses. A long string of silly sight gags, dances, absurd and surreal moments with a slim thread of a plot tying them together; A sad-sack hotel manager falls for a woman who may be an actual fairy. Or just a crazy person. Or maybe both.

Along their way they encounter a host of mostly very funny characters, like the nearly blind-owner of their favorite café, who is always right at the edge of spilling everything. (One of those jokes that could fail badly, or get old quickly if it wasn't pulled off with such deft precision, and big heartedness.)

There are a few inspired, laugh out loud comedy bits, many others that are sweetly enjoyable, and a few that just fall flat.

But while this may be a bit inconsistent, how lovely to see a comedy that aspires to Chaplin and Keaton and not American Pie 5.

To tell the truth, I only saw the second half of this film. It was on cable TV and I flicked onto it. I almost turned it off straight away, but while my finger was hovering over the button I found, to my surprise, that I was smiling; and then, to my even greater surprise, I laughed out loud.

I'm not generally a fan of French comedies. Far to many of them seem to think that it's funny to watch people shouting at each other as a result of some ridiculous misunderstanding. But occasionally there's one that's less aggressive, more subtle, and this is one of them. "Subtle" is probably not a word that would normally be used to describe the purely visual and physical humour of this film, but for me there was subtlety in the way the physical contortions of the two lead characters were performed without flamboyance or theatricality, and used to create situations that were totally unexpected.

Although not generally a fan of French comedies, I am certainly a fan of French cinema in general. One of the reasons for that is its ability to produce the occasional offbeat gem, like this one. It's funny, it's innocent and it's warm-hearted. I liked it a lot.

Although this film contains one of the best images I have ever seen in a film ( the tug of war contest over our lovers embracing) the humour was cartoonish tom-foolery. The audience quickly grew tired at being told when to laugh; all that was missing was a drum roll and symbol crash.The audience was left cringing in pro- longed,embarrassed silence. It seemed every bit- actor wanted the camera's attention for as long as possible adding to the squirm in the seat factor. Our lovers were more like elongated, gangly ,naive siblings. Pointless sub-plots add to the surreal feel of the film. There were lots of nods to the silent era ( our heroes are mime artists, so not fully surprising) but there was no mastery of subtlety- unlike Le Havre. Sweet but full of eye-rollingly excruciating moments.

One of those movies you get or you don't. I don't.

It's charming for a while. But it was hard for me to care about the characters -- there's just not enough to them to make much difference. Some of the scenes are amusing on their own, but others were not much.

So after an hour or so, there doesn't seem to be much point in continuing to watch. If I was in a theater, I'd have made it to the end, but on home rental -- no.