Wealthy, but depressed, a recent widower takes a sentimental journey to the French estate where he’d met his late wife. But it’s closed! Or rather, being redeveloped as a sort of luxury B&B and the ad he saw wasn’t for guests but for a British butler. Ahead of the plot already? (Ahead by about seven or eight decades, yes? Good Lord, what was debuting writer/director Gilles Legardinier thinking?) And whom to get to play the charming Brit who plays butler so he can rekindle some personal memories while fixing up the lives & loves of the staff along with the grounds & plumbing? Why Mister Charm himself: John Malkovich; speaking his own weirdly uninflected French.* Fanny Ardant, owner of this pile, appears in brief flashes under the odd staccato editing Legardinier favors when he’s not pointlessly circling chess games on the grass, hélas. Maurice Chevalier, Claudette Colbert and a good score under Ernst Lubitsch couldn’t have made this work in 1931. Released in France as COMPLÈTEMENT CRAMÉ!/’23; later in selected English-speaking territories as WELL DONE!; now scheduled for Stateside showings (in near empty bijoux) as MR. BLAKE AT YOUR SERVICE! Best avoided under any name.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *On a positive note: if your French is as bad as mine, Malkovich’s flat non-idiomatic delivery is understandable in a manner not possible when native French speakers rattle on.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: Is it possible the inspiration for this came from something as wonderful as MY MAN GODFREY/’36?
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