Dr. Knock

The movie is quite funny. While it tells a beautiful story of belonging and society, it is interspersed with funny moments, quotes, situations.

It is a feel good movie, you shouldn't expect deep gut wrenching choices that build character. The joy is in the beautiful pictures that are painted of rural France in the late 20th Century.

There was already an excellent 1951 movie from Jules Romains' book. Why and how they managed to shoot a remake that bad, that stupid, is beyond me.

Every choice they made is a bad one. The acting and cinematography are terrible, they twisted the story so far that the message is the opposite of the one of the book or the original film...

Simple story, yet beautifully told and played! The sceneries, the village and the people are so authentic and lovely. Omar Sy plays the doctor with so much sincerity, panache and humour. It's not about how accurate the movie is, it's about a story of belief in the face of adversity and challenges. You feel the characters, their daily dilemma, their battle and the boredom they encounter in their little village. The doctor, though, at first, main desire is to make money, he, then, sees and experiences the love shown to him by the villagers. Overall, the acting by each character is just fabulous and palpable.

While I understand movies adapted from books can take some liberties, there is something fundamentaly wrong in this film : the message is nothing but the opposite. Where Jules Romans finely depicted the excesses of medicine and modern sales technics, the scriptwriter of this mill turns the affair into a glorification of medicine. Where Jules Romain presents an unscrupulous crook, our scriptwriter presents a humanist almost honest, philanthropic. Incidentally, the scriptwriter slips into history with heavy insistence a continual mockery of the priest of the village totally absent from Jules Romain's novel. Finally, it remains a modern comedy, without finesse, very unappetizing, adapted to the decrepit masses who, in any case, will never have the idea to read the original. And whose only quality is the relatively correct game of Omar Sy. Three stars for the acting game ; otherwise would be one star.

Usually Omar Sy can do no wrong for me, I love his work, but he came over as creepy in this, and the story didn't hold me. I did try, but couldn't finish it.