Fools Rush In-French Style-Francis Veber’s The Dinner Game

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Dinner Game, written and directed by Francis Veber, 1998   

 

Yeah, like the old song went “fools rush in where angels fear to tread” but in the comedy of errors under review, Francis Veber’s The Dinner Game in French with English subtitles, one is never quite sure, at least of the characters on the screen, who the fool is and who should have paid attention when those damn angels stayed away. This one is an hour and twenty minutes of guessing just who is the fool and who is being taken in. In places a bit heavy-handed with some too intricate or implausible occurrences but overall worth your time if you have the time to spare.    

Here’s why I, for one, am wondering who the fool was. One Brochant, a prominent bourgeois publisher belongs to an exclusive club of prominent businessmen who, having apparently nothing better to do, have an “idiot’s night” at their weekly soirees. This “idiot” business for the seemingly chic and high-toned members is for each one to bring an “idiot” to the meeting and have the various guests compete, unknown to them, for the champion idiot of the night. Yeah, already I can see you are rooting for the idiots just like I was on this one.

These “idiots,” harmless men like the “star” of  the film, Pignon, an employee of the Finance Ministry, a tax guy okay, who had a maybe outsized  passion for building replicas of famous landmarks-out of match sticks  are the kind of contestants for the meetings. So the question of idiot might be just a bit overplayed by the club members. In any case the fools, the club members that is, have “talent” spotters searching Paris for appropriate candidates. That was how Brochant wound up with Pignon. Old Brochant would come to rue the day that he went up against old Pignon and that is where the comedy of errors come in. Prior to meeting Pignon he had had a back injury that put him out of whack and in the end would depend on our tax guy to get around. Would also come to depend on Pignon trying to find out where his estranged wife was after she could not, rightly, persuade him to give up the juvenile activities around idiot night. One thing Pignon did as the errors escalated was to expose Brochant’s mistress to his wife. Oops! For other such mishaps on the way to resolving the relationship between Brochant and Pignon watch this one.  Yeah, fools rush in.