{"id":5524,"date":"2007-11-14T23:04:12","date_gmt":"2007-11-15T05:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smaggi.us-east-1.derr.space\/?p=5524"},"modified":"2010-07-10T13:44:10","modified_gmt":"2010-07-10T18:44:10","slug":"the-valet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/2007\/11\/14\/the-valet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Valet<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Quick Mea Culpa:<\/strong> Another \u201cleftover\u201d review that wasn\u2019t finished by the time I went on vacation last month.<\/p>\n

This little French comedy was included in the trailers for\u00a0Black Book<\/em> so Somara and I decided to check it out. The premise of\u00a0The Valet<\/em> sounds like every other episode of\u00a0Three\u2019s Company<\/em> but it succeeds through its execution of \u201cless is more\u201d unlike most American romantic comedies.<\/p>\n

The movie begins with Fran\u00e7ois. A lowly carhop for an expensive restaurant with a crummy little apartment, barely any money and no serious future. These facts don\u2019t bother him because he is going to ask his childhood sweetheart Emilie to marry him. Afterwards, life can only improve. Emilie rejects his proposal immediately. She has no interest in marriage, especially to a loser like him, besides, she just started a bookstore and owes the bank over 30,000 Euros. Then Emilie hits him with the\u00a0coup de grace<\/em> of the \u201clets be friends\u201d speech. Demoralized, Fran\u00e7ois walks the streets of Paris to nurse his broken heart.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, millionaire Pierre Levasseur is having an argument in public with his mistress Elena, a famous fashion model. A tabloid photographer gets a few pictures of it while Fran\u00e7ois walks by the couple. When this incident makes the front page, Pierre\u2019s wife Christine demands to know the truth. Like all cornered, rich, cheating husbands, Pierre lies and it\u2019s quite a whopper; Elena was with the blurred out guy (Fran\u00e7ois). Christine doesn\u2019t believe it yet she is willing to play along because she wants to see him squirm. Christine can too, she owns 60 percent of their joint assets. Faced with little other recourse, Pierre follows through on his fabrication. Fran\u00e7ois is made an offer: live with Elena for 30 days, pretend to be the model\u2019s boyfriend and get paid for it. At first, Fran\u00e7ois thinks it\u2019s an on-camera prank for a TV show but eventually he accepts and only wants enough money to settle Emilie\u2019s debt. Elena is wiser since Pierre has strung her along for two years. She agrees to the arrangement with an asking price of 20 million Euros which is refundable if Pierre divorces Christine within the deadline.<\/p>\n

Obviously the situation deteriorates rapidly as jealousy ensues from Elena\u2019s public appearances with Fran\u00e7ois, reports from Pierre\u2019s spies, Christine\u2019s agents heightening Pierre\u2019s fears and Emilie witnessing this without knowing the whole situation. There\u2019s also a very puzzled media wondering why is Elena dating such an unattractive man, including Fran\u00e7ois\u2019 parents.<\/p>\n

It would be unfair to say that only the French could successfully execute a tired sitcom premise, but sadly it\u2019s true these days. A comedy this concise couldn\u2019t be made by any of the major American studios for three huge reasons.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. American Ugly Duckling stories have this lazy need to incorporate a mandatory makeover montage. Thankfully Elena doesn\u2019t give Fran\u00e7ois pointers on being more GQ<\/em>, just advice about what Emilie may be thinking.<\/li>\n
  2. The wife character isn\u2019t a shrill, annoying psychobitch or clueless ditz providing sympathy for Pierre from the audience. Christine knows she\u2019s in control at many levels. She\u2019s probably trying to get her unfaithful husband to decide.<\/li>\n
  3. Finally, I had to applaud the ending which many would criticize as abrupt or sudden instead being drawn out another 10 minutes to punish all the \u201cvillains\u201d and reward the \u201cheroes.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Sorry if my review consists of elements\u00a0The Valet<\/em> lacks but Romantic Comedies are cranked out by the numbers in the States. I would still recommend this highly regardless of its national origin because it\u2019s a universal story and as I stated earlier, the execution is what makes the film succeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Quick Mea Culpa: Another \u201cleftover\u201d review that wasn\u2019t finished by the time I went on vacation last month. This little French comedy was included in the trailers for\u00a0Black Book so Somara and I decided to check it out. The premise … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-onthetv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5524"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5527,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5524\/revisions\/5527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maggipicayune.derr.io\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}