In lockstep with Italy’s Lina Wertmüller, French filmmaker Bertrand Blier’s brief, intense vogue on American screens in the '70s took a resounding fall that left him out of fashion (and largely out of distribution) by decade’s end. Suddenly, what had looked humorously challenging became socially/politically toxic. But where Wertmüller’s overstated/overeager films now seem all but irredeemable, Blier, can fall back on his classic French film technique, and HANDKERCHIEFS probably the best one to sample. Gérard Depardieu (in youthful fighting trim at his most Brando-esque) is the worried husband of a disinterested Carole Laure. Trying anything to revive her old joie de vivre*, he bets on likely pick-up Patrick Dewaere to supply the spark. Alas, Laure would rather knit sweaters than make love. (As the film goes on, all the men start wearing the same knit sweater pattern. Nice touch!) Nosy, annoyed neighbor Michel Serrault also joins the task force, but it’ll be an unhappy, mathematically inclined 13-yr-old camper who leads her to bliss. Spinning delightfully when not spinning its wheels, Dewaere, in particular, so consistently funny, offbeat & winning, he takes the curse off much in here.* (Depardieu tends to push too hard in comedy.) At times you hardly notice that Laure, topless in half her shots, only exists as reflection for various male egos. A personification of one of those extra receivers on the back of an old French telephone. The film goes a little flat in the middle, but picks up as it turns more farcical & absurd, with a delightful side story for Serrault and the young boy’s mother that knows when to get the hell out of the way. Something Blier never quite mastered elsewhere.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY/DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: *When Dewaere’s Mozart-infatuated character speaks of the composer dying at 35, it can’t help but remind you of Dewaere’s early death when he was only 35. See him at his peak in the great, savagely funny sports comedy COUP DE TÊTE/’79. OR: Also from 1979, Blake Edwards putting Dudley Moore thru similar paces trying to make two women happy in the deliriously effective MICKI & MAUDE. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/03/coup-de-tete-hothead-1979.html https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2013/05/micki-maude-1984.html
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: *For a childless couple, the concept of ‘making your wife laugh’ would normally be code for having a baby. Blier, not a sub-textual kind of guy, makes the baby a literal idea.
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