The film primarily follows Jean-Jacques Castella (Bacri), a vulgar, unpleasant middle-aged industrialist living a typical French provincial life. He’s comfortably, if not exactly happily, married. He lives in a large house heavily decorated by his amateurish interior decorator wife, Angélique (played beautifully as a sensitive airhead by Christiane Millet), and their son is studying abroad. When the story begins, Castella is about to sign an important contract with Iranian investors, which he nevertheless feels doesn’t justify having bodyguard Franck (Gérard Lanvin) follow him everywhere, on top of his driver Bruno (Alain Chabat).
Castella, like most of Bacri’s characters (Nicolas in Same Old Song, Henri in Family Resemblances, Jean-Pierre in Didier), is perpetually grumpy and bitter—as Kiche notes, “Grouchy Bacri is always a pleasure to watch.” Reluctantly, he agrees to accompany his wife to the theater one evening, to support his niece, who has a minor role in a local production of Racine’s Bérénice (a tragedy about lovers separated by government and society). Against all odds, Castella finds himself incredibly moved by the performance of Clara Devaux (Anne Alvaro), the actress playing the protagonist. Or, is it Clara herself who touches him?
He recognizes her as the woman he briefly considered hiring for English lessons, and not only decides to employ her after all (a hilarious scene in which he tries to pronounce the “th” sound will be highly relatable for any French native speaker—yet I agree with Zo! that “Castella wouldn’t last two days on DuoLingo”) but also dedicates himself to acquiring the sophisticated taste that she and her artsy group of friends have.
Meanwhile, the people around Castella face their own sentimental struggles, intimately linked to culture clashes: Bruno naively wonders why his girlfriend, away in the US for an internship, hasn’t written to him in three weeks. He also reconnects with free-spirited barmaid and casual drug dealer Manie (Jaoui), until she chooses the more macho and cynical Franck, whose past in the police force and more conservative values make their romance a minefield. As for Angélique, she doesn’t understand why Castella’s sister Béatrice (Brigitte Catillon) doesn’t appreciate her expert advice to put pink flowers everywhere in her new apartment. In his four-star review, Paul describes the film as “a magnificently orchestrated ballet.”
