Palais royal !

Reviewer destinationssecretes sums it up well: vulgar and rogue. And pedestrian... Deneuve is excellent though. Lemercier can be pretty funny if directed well, that is obviously here, not by her own self...

Those of us who found the much-vaunted albeit slightly dubious charm of Princess Diana terminally elusive will revel in this delicious satire in which writer-director Valerie Lemercier captures perfectly that faux demureness and all too real touch of the retard about Diana. Lemercier, who is much more lovely and desirable than Diana ever was, is right on the nose with her characterisation developing it naturally from the gauche, naive speech therapist who lucked into a Prince (Lambert Wilson)who, as the second son - shades of 'Bertie' aka George the Sixth - had no realistic claim to the throne but did have an elder brother who might be a Prince but would never make sperm Count so that when the King dies unexpectedly Wilson finds himself the new reigning Monarch and Lemercier by extension becomes Queen. Ever-so-slowly the moth becomes a social butterfly and Lemercier's genius is that she can makes us wince/reach for the sick-bag as Armelle is incapable of passing a Black child or a Senior Citizen without summoning the photographers and posing winsomely, yet sympathize with her rebellion against Royal protocol/chastisement as personified and practiced by Catherine Deneuve's Queen and Michel Aumont's Brother-in-law. The scene where Armelle gets a custard pie in the kisser will resonate with all those who longed to hurl just such a missile at the 'Queen of Hearts' as will many other scenes. By now, of course, I've lost half my readers but I urge the other half to seek out this gem as soon as possible.

This is, of course, a comedy. So, let's talk funny: three testicles theme, the whole Deneuve character, the opening London sequence, personal trainer guy - very funny. The whole thing is a bit long, but quite enjoyable. I'm just wondering if they also ridicule the Belge (the only French-speaking continental people with royalty), as it goes along, but I don't know French enough to catch the nuances. One interesting quality - since it is a poke at the English, the humour is very held-back (not the usual French buffonade), easily the "English gentlemen"-like comic routine, perfectly in line with stuff like the "Stiff upper lip". I guess it is THE stylistic gimmick used here, apart from the obvious Diana satire, to our delight.

When you look at the actress playing Armelle, an ordinary speech therapist inadvertently married to a prince, when you consider her shapeless body, her unappealing face, her unbecoming clothing style you just can't believe she is the same Valérie Lemercier who found the energy necessary to write this story, to convince producers to give her enough money to make this lavish-looking movie, to allow her to film it in three different countries, with a stellar cast, including Catherine Deneuve in a royal but self-mocking role, and, to crown it all, featuring herself as the leading lady...! But when the ugly duckling starts rebelling against the silly etiquette that stifles her and against the falseness masked by fairy tale appearances, slowly blossoming into a slick, elegant, attractive, self-assertive young lady, you suddenly realize that Valérie Lemercier is not cast against type. Just like real life humorist Valérie Lemercier, Armelle has become go ahead, dynamic and capable, refusing to be manipulated, commenting on her social environment with biting humor.

"Palais Royal!", her third work as a director, is a comedy, but there is more to it than that. It is also - and most of all- a sharp satire of life at court, denouncing its silly etiquette as well as all the meanness, the falseness and the hidden vulgarity inherent in such regimes.In great part inspired by the doomed destiny of Diana, princess of Wales, the film makes the viewer understand better the Via Dolorosa Diana had to go through before her untimely death. But, thanks to comedy, Lemercier does it avoiding the heavy-handed pathos of a soap.

The actors are all excellent. I will single out a few, like Catherine Deneuve, perfect as the callous queen, Lambert Wilson as the new king not exactly killing himself at his royal task, Michel Aumont as the would-be dignified chief of protocol and Michel Vuillermoz as pathetic prince Alban, ruled out from the throne for "testicule reasons".

The only shortcoming I would deplore is the excessive vulgarity Lemercier indulges in. Of course she means to expose this defect among people who have exquisite manners while on official duty and who let themselves go as soon as they are away from the limelight, but this viewer feels that she derives pleasure in being graphic. Such complacency slightly reduces the impact of the satire. Billy Wilder and Ernst Lubitsch who have often been accused of the same leaning for vulgarity knew where to draw the line though.

Whatever, all in all, a film well worth seeing.

A great reinvention of the story of life and death of lady Diana Spencer. It takes place in imaginary French-speaking country of Western Europe. after the accidental death of the king his younger son has to take his place which makes his wife - a speech therapist Armelle, the potential queen. The current queen, francophone re-incarnation of Queen Elizabeth II (minus UGLY part), played by magnificent Catherine Deneuve, is not sure that this plain-looking awkward woman can bear the royal duties with dignity and clearly doesn't care about her. After series of misadventures, Armelle feels like she doesn't fit in the royal world and when she discovers her husband adultery, she decides to take revenge. She'll show them all who is the real queen of hearts! This comedy makes you laugh and cry. Catherine Deneuve looks stunning and parades in a real fashion show of outfits, wearing them with truly royal grace. The parallels with Lady Di story are in-your-face, but rather charming, because they are put in the continental French-speaking milieu.