Monique

Alex (Albert Dupontel) and Claire (Marianne Denicourt) are living a boring and tedious life after years of marriage. They do not communicate to each other anymore, and Alex is almost speechless at home and without motivation and inspiration in his work as a former successful photographer. When Claire decides to leave him to live with her sculptor teacher, and Alex, completely wasted, accidentally orders an expensive and desirable sex molded doll called "Monique", his life changes completely. Alex falls in love with Monique, making all his fantasies come true, while his privacy is respected. His behavior affects the lives of his closest friends and Claire.

This witty and original comedy plays with endured and routine relationships that are completely exhausted, without communication or sex life. Alex represents those men in middle-age crisis that keep their boring and tedious marriage without any further emotions or dialog, actually accommodated to the situation. Claire represents those women afraid to give a step ahead in life, balancing between a stable finished relationship and the fear for new feelings and experiences. Monique represents the new, the refreshment of a wasted life and the dream of most "Alexs". The director Valérie Guignabodet shows a great sensibility, approaching this delicate theme in a funny and neutral way, never being corny or accusing or defending who is right or who is wrong in this battle of sexes. One correction: The Worldcup of 1950 was in Brazil, director Valérie Guignabodet committed a serious research mistake. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Monique – Sempre Feliz" ("Monique – Always Happy")

I've just seen the movie, and it was quite a nice surprise for me. although it contains a lot of Hollywood-style touches, there are plenty of original elements to offer a comforting change versus the usual American comedy. without going into spoilers, i can just say that one must be French to put that much sex in a movie without making it boring an without letting it be just about sex. actually, the movie presents a rather common theme - midlife crisis for men - placing it in a rather forced, yet comedy-creating context. I think one should be more into the French modern lifestyle to get all the hints, but it's quite enjoyable even without it. another thing i just have to state is that Marianne Denicourt is drop-dead gorgeous, and her acting is not bad either :-). the support cast does the job pretty nice, but every once in a while you can get that "TV production" feeling, mainly because of the settings. All in all, a movie that can improve someone's evening.

This first movie of a woman directly come from French television is based on comparatively classic basis. Albert Dupontel plays the role of Max, a man who has everything to be happy: a stable job as a photograph, a ravishing wive (Marianne Denicourt) but little by little, depression overcomes him so much so that nearly nothing interests him. One night, during a night of drinking bout, he orders on Internet a molded doll as tall as him called Monique. It doesn't take him long to fall in love with her and to look after her as good as possible to the surprise of his friends.

By reading this summary of the story, it is evident that Valérie Guignabodet, at least in the first part of her movie was influenced by "Kennedy et moi" (1999), a film made by Sam Karmann starring Jean-Pierre Bacri. The latter and Albert Dupontel act the same type of character and present several similarities. They're both family fathers. They are sick of their respective lives. Their wives deceive them with lovers. But at least they find some comfort with their fathers who live in old people's homes. But especially, they regain strength thanks to silly actions. If Bacri found taste for life again because he could get the watch of his shrink (the one that Kennedy wore on the day he was killed), here Dupontel, his love for a molded doll makes him happy and Monique doesn't leave Dupontel's friends indifferent.

Except for the will to show that her main character treats "Monique" like a real woman, Valérie Guignabodet also directed her movie on the meetings between Max's friends and "Monique" as well as the consequences. Through this method we can formulate that "Monique", for the male characters, is the perfect woman, the one that every man would like to get which cause their wives' frustrations.

Guignabodet's work is a good one and if she doesn't avoid the predictable sudden new developments, if her style contains ponderousness, if the film writing lacks coherence towards the end, her movie reserves good moments and it often borders on the surrealism and the politically incorrect. Moreover, the absurdity of the sequences where we see Max taking care of her lifeless love is enhanced by a photography with very kitsch colors and the chosen songs give to the movie a crazy air.

Valérie Guignabodet's career as a film-maker is in a good way as this globally successfully movie shows.

The author wrote for TV before but it is her first long-feature movie. Well it has a lot of what first movies have : good ideas, not so well used.

Maybe the writer/director did not "live" enough to have an indeep feeling of those terrible matter, love and sex, male and female, human or puppet.

Some parts are realy funny, some others lacks of something.

Some situations can't work but no fictional gift is made to make us believe to them so... I'd say : watchable, could have been much better (or much worst too). I'd love to see a such subject writen by a 50 old woman for instance. The acting is not bad but the parts are not always well written.

I watched the movie yesterday and must admit that this is a pretty good one, although not the best ever. First of all one of the good arguments in favor of the movie is the very fact that this tackles the common issue of midlife depression in a very different way than it usually is dealt with. Second, the "carpe diem" feeling is very strong. The scenes with all of Alex's wife's friends coming to see him and convince to give up the molded doll is extremely funny on the one hand, and added to this it is sooooo true, so close to what reality would bring such a situation to ! After all, the movie is all about going blindly the way you want to, without paying attention to common society safeguards. Alex does what he wants, although everybody think his having a relationship with a doll makes him some sort of perverse ans sick guy. Even more, he eventually decides to take his doll out, and show everybody that he doesn't feel guilty nor sick. He's even proud of this relationship with the doll, and therefore proves his friends' and wife's feeling that their "common normal life" is very good. You'd first think that he's the one who might consider himself sick, but in the end everybody around him gets interested into his new silicone girlfriend, and all of a sudden everybody seem to realize that their common lifestyle and everyday life is as boring as ALex first considered his own life. Everybody needs a Monique, that would be the last word of the movie.