After You (2003)

The Worst Film Ever

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Laurel and Hardy : Antoine and Louis I laughed and slapped my knee as the duo reminded me of these two old boys, Laurel and Hardy. Antoine always had a grande scheme to fix things while Louis was always following close behind, afraid to err.So my confusion stems from: were the film makers creating a comedy or was the ending supposed to leave me thinking romance? At first I was convinced that Antoine was a bumbling fool and had fallen for the girl as Laurel always did -- that won't last! But as the movie stirred in my brain I thought, "Wait, what if this was supposed to be a romantic ending, that the audience was supposed to feel happy for a new couple in Antoine and Blanche!" "Naaaaaah".But upon further review, I read that many thought this was a romantic ending, that something "real" existed between Antoine and Blanche at some point during the film.I'm stumped. Great movie and hilarious if Antoine represents a bumbling fool who's found a flake in Blanche -- disastrous if that was supposed to be a match made in Paris...

Apres Vous is the story of two men, one a hectic headwaiter living in a state of romantic suspension with his girlfriend, the other a depressed individual of indeterminate occupation having a hard time living after dumping his own significant other. Their acquaintanceship begins in a way befitting two characters in a French romantic-comedy: Antoine, the headwaiter, finds himself crossing a deserted park at night, the same park Louis the head-case has chosen as the site for his last moments on earth; discovering Louis dangling from a tree, Antoine aids the unfortunate man, rescuing him from his self-inflicted coup de grace, while managing simultaneously to placate his own girlfriend, Christine, who is waiting with dinner for him at their apartment (ah the wonders of the cell-phone). Inordinately sympathetic toward the depressed Louis' plight, Antoine brings the poor man home. This sets off a chain of events that will draw Antoine ever deeper into Louis' miserable existence, bringing him face-to-face with the woman responsible for breaking Louis' heart, an ethereal florist named Blanche, who has romantic problems of her own, and becomes yet another beneficiary of the increasingly discombobulated Antoine's misguided altruism.European films are often preoccupied with the strange, co-incidental ways in which people's fates become intertwined, but instead of mining this theme for a sense of existential wonder, like Kieslowski, director Pierre Salvadori goes a more conventional direction, turning in a breezy, somewhat darkly-shaded comedy in the tradition of Woody Allen, where there are enough ideas floating around to keep the viewer's mind engaged, but the tone never becomes really intellectual, and the neuroses rarely become extreme enough to engender the kind of dramatic gravity that might bring down the farce, the romantic escapades, the light-comic esprit. The characters may have serious mental issues, especially Louis who is a candidate for a psycho-ward, but Salvadori never takes them that seriously; he fixes the semi-frivolous tone early in the film, when Antoine comes across Louis hanging from the tree branch, and has to converse with Christine on the phone at the same time he's trying to rescue the strangling man. This scene could be straight out of Woody Allen, and frankly so could a lot of the rest of the movie, like the scene where Antoine takes Louis to his aged grandparents' place to intercept the letter he's sent them, telling them of his imminent suicide; or the sequence where Antoine helps Louis get work as a sommelier at the restaurant, and Louis is completely hapless, clinging to the flustered Antoine's coat-tails while worrying the light fixtures are doing to drop on his head. The trick is all in the handling, in keeping the farce from becoming so broad that it shatters the reality of the characters, but putting it across strongly enough that we're amused by what's happening in a way that isn't too abstract (the scenes are funny, not just the ideas, like in a lot of French "comedy"). Salvadori and his cast prove themselves adept at this brand of comedy, which is silly but not too silly, smart but not too smart, dark but not too dark. Daniel Auteuil, the French De Niro, uses his tender eyes to great effect in playing Antoine, who is much more anxiety-ridden than he's letting on, while Jose Garcia employs a natural, understated sad-sack quality in playing Louis as a whimpering, panic-stricken mess. The object of Antoine and Louis' mutual affection, Blanche, is portrayed by Sandrine Kiberlain (think Gwyneth Paltrow without the haughtiness) as a free-spirit with a weakness for hooking up with the wrong man, whose porcelain skin and tragic eyes prove an irresistible, if off-beat, combination.Like a lesser Woody Allen film, Apres Vous works well enough without ever reaching critical mass. The plot is perhaps too neatly symmetrical, too schematic to allow real comic or emotional fireworks to go off; or perhaps it's just that Pierre Salvadori is the kind of director who's content to generate only a mild energy, who, like Allen, is happy breezing toward a logical resolution, and doesn't feel the need to press matters very much. Either way, Apres Vous is successful on the terms it sets, which are modest.

Daniel Auteuil is always good value. One of France's top actors he is the master of understatement, telling us more by facial expression and body language than words ever could. However, I think he was sold short by this movie where the other characters, with one exception, were poorly drawn. Without spoiling - he rescues a man about to hang himself because his girlfriend has left him, and becomes entangled in this man's life. But there was nothing about either the guy or his girlfriend which merited someone going out of their way to help. Both totally lacked charisma, Blanche particularly was one of those women you simply want to shake in an effort to get some sort of personality into her. Louis needed a smart punch in the mouth and frankly, when Antoine finally got to the end of his tether with the guy's stupidity and weaknesses, I was looking forward to that as the high spot of the movie. Nothing could have upstaged the marvellous André Tainsy though, who died only a few months after this film was released, aged 93. She was une trésor absolue, carrying off her role with finesse, incredible humour, so understated - and total aplomb. It is a funny film (and if you know Fawlty Towers, it's in that vein) in an excruciatingly painful way where you just know everything is going to go wrong and there are a couple of laugh-aloud moments but given the mood throughout, it has the unlikeliest ending you could imagine.Brilliant music by Camille Bazbaz all the way through and if nothing else his 'Papa Tango Charlie' should have been a massive hit.

Après vous (2003), directed by Pierre Salvadori, has the same basic plot as Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932). In both films, someone saves the life of a person. This person then causes endless problems for the rescuer.Daniel Auteuil (Antoine) is the senior waiter in an elegant restaurant in Paris. He's skilled and respected at work, and has a wonderful girlfriend named Christine (Marilyne Canto). Antoine has the misfortune of saving Louis (José Garcia) from death by suicide.Louis is a loser in life and in romance. He has attempted suicide because of his rejection by the love of his life, Blanche (Sandrine Kiberlain).All this takes place within the first ten minutes of the movie. The remainder of the film follows these four characters as they go down an amusing--but fairly predictable--road.Certain things don't come together. For example, Blanche is considered the epitome of female virtues, but, other than her long, slender neck, I didn't see much that was attractive about her appearance or her personality.The best scene in the film is that between Antoine and Louis' Grandmother. The late Andrée Tainsy was 92 (!) years old when she played this role.This movie is not obnoxious, but it's far from a masterpiece. My suggestion--rent Boudu Saved from Drowning (Boudu Sauvé des Eaux) and watch how a master director handles a similar plot.