La doublure

Dany Boon (Joyeux Noël) got a César nomination for supporting actor as the best friend of a really lucky guy.

Daniel Auteuil (Caché, Girl on the Bridge) is hilarious as the billionaire caught with his supermodel mistress, France's Actress of the year for 2006, Alice Taglioni (The Pink Panther). François (Gad Elmaleh) just happened to be in the published picture, so they paid him to fake a relationship with Taglioni to fool Auteuil's wife, Kristin Scott Thomas (Four Weddings and a Funeral, The English Patient, Gosford Park). She's no dummy, knows he's lying, and that's when the fun really begins.

Of course, our man François is really in love with Émilie (Virginie Ledoyen - 8 Women, Saint Ange).

It is all good fun and credit for that is not only due to a fine cast, but to writer/director Francis Veber (La Cage aux folles), who put together some great lines and a funny situation.

Please do not let them make a stupid American remake. It won't possibly be as good as the French version.

I really enjoyed The Valet. It's a sweet little film that had me grinning the whole way through. My smiles were only interrupted now and then by bursts of laughter.

Gad Elmaleh plays a valet who through pure chance is photographed with a billionaire (the always wonderful Daniel Auteuil) and his mistress, a famous supermodel. When the photo turns up in the tabloids the billionaire must convince his wife that the supermodel is really with the valet, so he gets them to live together while his wife has them shadowed by private investigators. The plan backfires on the billionaire when he finds himself consumed with jealousy at the thought of his mistress spending the night with another man, so he also sends private investigators to watch them. Meanwhile the Valet has romantic problems of his own that are complicated by the fact that all of a sudden he finds himself shacking up with the most beautiful woman in France. It's a cute and funny little romantic comedy.

Nothing new under the sun:wives,lovers,girlfriends,mistaken identities...But why deny yourself a good thing,an entertaining unpretentious funny little comedy?You should be wrong.

An excellent cast,male and female,gives this trite story substance.Daniel Auteuil,as the villain,a smug mean bourgeois who thinks that money can buy everything,Kristin Scott-Thomas ,as his cheated wife who threatens to ask for a divorce (and it is her who owns the dough),Alice Taglioni as the gorgeous but sensitive top model (definitely not a bimbo),Gad Elmaleh as the clumsy shy prole,Virginie Ledoyen ,one of the most promising French actresses,as a sentimental bookseller and Richard Berry as Auteuil's lawyer.

A few nods to "rear window" .And a very funny (and moral) ending.

Needing something lightly comic, Veber was my man.

His "The Closet" was trivial, but few trivial things are amusing and fondly recalled. Here, with a different actor, is the same character with much the same quality.

I won't bother you with the story. It doesn't matter. What matters is the way the humor is designed. Essentially all the humor is in the lines. There is no physical comedy here and almost no visual comedy. It is mostly in the dialog. Here is the trick: where other comedy is episodic and/or depends on a zany pace, this has pretty much a normal world, and normal pace. You cannot read the warning signs that a joke is coming. It could appear at any moment, and does from the very beginning.

So very early in the game we are trained to engage ourself very closely and pay attention. This is painless because the world we invest in is so light. We need erect no barriers. Because we open ourselves so, we anticipate what might be funny, investing in the possibility. The form of the thing enlists us in making funny.

This is easy to test. I believe it to be true, and honorably delicate in the way it helps us live.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

see this one! THE VALET is hilarious! I haven't laughed so loudly and enjoyed a French farce so much since LA CAGE AUX FOLLES in 1980. No doubt there will be a terrible USA remake (hello Nicholas Cage, Nic, pick up the phone, it's Disney remakes on the line) which will blunt the silliness and sharpness of this Gallic comedy. Another comment on this site said it is a sure successor to Billy Wilder comedies and that is probably as close to the mark, generating the audience goodwill before they buy at ticket. And you should too; THE VALET like Wilder's ONE TWO THREE or KISS ME STUPID, is intelligent ridiculousness, all glossy with flowers and puzzled faces, retorts and door slamming, bumbling and embarrassments. If Blake Edwards was still making films this would his perfect project as a remake in the US; sadly I expect it to be handled by some MTV hack who will turn it into gravy with a few punches. But, see it first as THE VALET. Laugh. What a delight to see Kristin Scott-Thomas too. What a sly role for her. Yum.