Customer Reviews

Mauvais esprit (Original French ONLY Version - No English Options)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

French comedy about a man named Simon who has his architectual design stolen from him by a man named Porel. To make matters worse, Porel accidentally hits him with his car. But Simon is reincarnated as Porel's baby and does everything in his infant power to make life miserable for Porel.

French comedy at its worst, `Mauvais esprit' shows everything that you don't want to see in theater or on TV. It's vulgar, nasty, and most of all unfunny, even considering the cultural differences between France and other countries. I am a Japanese who has enjoyed watching silly French comedies like `Ast?rix & Ob?lix: Mission Cl?op?tre' but this one' is too much for me.

The story is not a very original one, but still could be palatable with decent treatment. It is about one perpetual loser Simon (Michel Muller `Wasabi') who thinks his perfect designs for a new museum is stolen by Vincent, the snobbish COO of a large-scale corporation (Thierry Lhermitte). Simon is so unlucky that he is not only thrown out of the office by the security, but is hit by a car driven by none other than Vincent himself.

And here is the key concept of the film. Somehow poor Simon is allowed to be reincarnated as a baby, the newly-born son of Vincent. Simon (or Junior) does everything he can do in order to make the life of Vincent as miserable as possible.

But what a little baby can do after all? Except the repetitious and uninspired gross-out gags that Thierry Lhermitte has to suffer, and Muller's tired voice-overs that are not particularly funny to hear, the film goes nowhere. The film has a sub-plot about Carmen (Leonor Watling) the unfaithful lover of Simon, which is marginally more interesting than the feeble main story because Watling (sleeping beauty in `Talk to Her') shows surprisingly good comic acting.

Thierry Lhermitte, popular French actor who tends to be cast as a snob (as in James Ivory film `Le Divorce'), can be in fact very subtle in presenting the character he plays (see `The Dinner Game' or `Strange Gardens') and he shows his talent portraying the image of a loving father with depth who believes he is hated by his own son (still 9-month old). But as James Ivory did in his terrible culture-clash comedy, director Patrick Alessandrin commits the same mistake trying to give more stress than necessary to the actor's familiar despicably `snobbish' image, easiest way to get laughs from the audiences.

Ms. Watling is, after wasting my precious time of life, the only saving grace I could find in this mess. Still her role is so small, even insignificant. The rest of the film is about the unlikable people doing unfunny things.