Après vous...

This has to be, no contest, the best restaurant-based movie since Claude Sautet persuaded Yves Montand and Jacques Villeret to don monkey suits for 'Garcon'. They get the mix just right between humor and pathos and although it's based on a dubious premise for the 21st century - maitre d' Auteuil spots Garcia trying to top himself, intervenes and then, against all the odds of cynicism, feels obliged to 'adopt' him and straighten out his life - it still works. This straightening out includes fixing up klux Garcia with a job as sommelier at Auteuil's restaurant which means in turn that Garcia must compete in an interview/audition with people who have actually worked as sommeliers. Given that Garcia knows as much about wine as Ludivine Sagnier knows about acting with her clothes on the audition is a hoot, with Auteuil, sitting in, natch, on the interview and attempting to coach Garcia surreptitiously. The main reason that Garcia was interested in running out of breath was the fact that he'd been dumped by a girl friend and nothing will do but that Auteuil must intervene once more and attempt to win back the ex-girl friend, who is now involved with someone else. Not unnaturally, Auteuil begins to fall in love with said girl friend which is not exactly hard given that she is played by Sandrine Kiberlain, a great actress with an elusive beauty which is hard to classify. She doesn't do chocolate-box like Audrey Tautou, she doesn't do chic like Catherine Deneuve, she doesn't do warmth like Isabelle Huppert and Fanny Ardant and she most certainly doesn't do slut like Ludivine Sagnier, whatever she does she does it to a fare-thee-well and if you don't believe me ask that swine Vincent Lindon, who married her before I could get there first (just kidding, Vince, you're a great actor yourself if anybody asks you but WHY did you have to take her off the market?). This complication gives the movie an extra fillip, a touch of the Cyrano de Bergeracs, with Auteuil pressing a claim for a guy who is now, to all intents and purposes, a rival, although unlike Cyrano, who has been in love with Roxanne all his life and is himself unattached, Auteuil is - or was - in a happy relationship until these life-changing events. All in all a very fine movie worth a couple of hours of anyone's time provided they are motivated by people and the Human Condition and not Matrix-type fx. 9/10

In Pierre Salvadori's film 'Aprez Vouz', Daniel Autiel's character plays a man whose life is ruined after a would-be suicide, whose life he saves, subsequently becomes dependent on him. Some of the comedy is painful, and most of it is stupid, but it's done with a certain underhand style, and the development of the plot, while not exactly plausible, moves the story onwards in unexpected directions. It drags in places, but it's hard to avoid smiling in others - overall, it's hardly a masterpiece of French cinema, but it is a gentle, quirky piece, endowed with a refreshing air of innocence (such as rarely circulates in Hollywood comedy).

"Après vous..." is a gentle, screwball cross between "Cyrano" and "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," or, more accurately probably, its French progenitor "Boudu sauvé des eaux."

Daniel Auteuil very expressively plays a much put upon Good Samaritan, whose life and identity get more and more entangled with the object of his personal philanthropy. While the employment and romantic lengths that he goes to in helping his hapless beneficiary, who shares some foibles with TV's Monk, stretch believability, he is very amusing and certainly the viewer gets as caught up as he is in the ensuing complications, even if they do seem a bit endless.

One of its charms is that all the characters have saving graces. Unlike similar American movies, characters who are in the way of the inevitable are not shrill and the screenplay, co-written by director Pierre Salvadori, is not mean or condescending to them, as there is equal poignancy and laughter.

There may be additional jokes about French restaurants and cuisine that lose something in the U.S. as this is almost as much a restaurant movie as "Dinner Rush" or "Big Night." The English subtitles, when they are not white on white, have poor grammar and spelling, including inconsistency of a character's name.

The repeating amusing sounding pop tunes on the soundtrack seem to have some significance, but the lyrics are not translated.

Daniel Auteuil is always good value. One of France's top actors he is the master of understatement, telling us more by facial expression and body language than words ever could. However, I think he was sold short by this movie where the other characters, with one exception, were poorly drawn. Without spoiling - he rescues a man about to hang himself because his girlfriend has left him, and becomes entangled in this man's life. But there was nothing about either the guy or his girlfriend which merited someone going out of their way to help. Both totally lacked charisma, Blanche particularly was one of those women you simply want to shake in an effort to get some sort of personality into her.

Louis needed a smart punch in the mouth and frankly, when Antoine finally got to the end of his tether with the guy's stupidity and weaknesses, I was looking forward to that as the high spot of the movie.

Nothing could have upstaged the marvellous André Tainsy though, who died only a few months after this film was released, aged 93. She was une trésor absolue, carrying off her role with finesse, incredible humour, so understated - and total aplomb.

It is a funny film (and if you know Fawlty Towers, it's in that vein) in an excruciatingly painful way where you just know everything is going to go wrong and there are a couple of laugh-aloud moments but given the mood throughout, it has the unlikeliest ending you could imagine.

Brilliant music by Camille Bazbaz all the way through and if nothing else his 'Papa Tango Charlie' should have been a massive hit.

Although this film has a few funny moments, the general performance is flabby and leaves you frustrated and expecting better. There are two many scenes that are drawn out, and where you are waiting for the inevitable to happen but there it takes too long to arrive. The goods bits are the audition of José Garcia for the job in the restaurant, when Daniel Auteil takes to the booze and some of the scenes where they are prowling around Blanche's house. The actors are all pleasant to watch, even the lady restaurant owner, and this to some extent saves the film but I came away from it with an overall feeling of frustration at having sat through a relatively long period to get so few laughs. I can't see this film having ANY success outside France and even here, from what I can gather by asking around, it doesn't appear to have been a major success. Pity, because the makings of something better are definitely there and the plot could have been developed with further qui-pro-quo's to make it spicier !