Pretty Good

Just what I expected

A Masterpiece!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Before deciding if I want to see a movie or not, I usually do 2 things: I check out the IMDb vote and I see the trailer. To tell you the truth I did this quite a long time ago for this one, so I looked at the vote again before hitting the play button. You can imagine that my expectations were quite low: a 5.2 out of 10 isn't that much and the 3 reviews out there were so critical. I decided to see it anyway imagining that I will at least have a different experience given that the movies I normally watch are Hollywood productions. I must say I actually enjoyed it! I took it as a comedy, not as a documentary! I saw people were complaining about the fact that the situations were highly unlikely or that the movie was inspired from a book and it didn't do it justice. Well movies rarely succeed in doing that as far as I know... Books and movies are 2 distinct experiences! I liked the fact that there was little or no vulgarity and a complete lack of fart/bodily fluids/coarse sex jokes that I see too often! I don't find those funny! It's way more difficult to make people laugh because of funny circumstances or truly intelligent or sarcastic lines! To wrap it up without giving anything away, take it as a light-hearted comedy and don't have too high expectations - you might actually enjoy it ;)

Ariane and Hugo are a married couple of a certain social status. He is a big executive with a firm of heavy construction equipment. Ariane is a housewife with a side job as a jewelry designing concern. She is useless when it comes to taking care of the house, or the children, for that matter. Hugo, on the other hand, has much better sense of accomplishment, being a successful business man. Hugo's attitude is to leave all the household things to Ariane, after all, he feels it's his right!Ariane, who is dissatisfied with a boring life makes a proposal to Hugo, how about changing roles. She will assume Hugo's position at his firm, and he will stay home to take care of the house, and kids, plus the jewelry sideline. Both agree in the experiment and sign an agreement for a year to see where it goes. Both are transformed by the experiment, but are they really happy doing what either one was prepared to do?This French comedy, probably a vehicle for its star, Sophie Marceau, could have been made by Hollywood. One would not doubt the American cinema will attempt to make it into a 'cute' remake because it has all the elements that will appeal to their audiences. Directed by Pascal Pouzadoux, who also helped with the screenplay. Do not make any mistakes, this is a glossy film with a sophisticated look. Sophie Marceau and Danny Boon, a good French comedian, do what they can with a movie that does not go anywhere.

This movie is not a "bouse" it is a big "merde". There are some funny scenes and the middle is almost good, but the beginning and the end are some of the worse moments I've ever seen in a movie... First she punch her husband in the face and he is bleeding. haha very funny. She say, "if I was a man I would already call the cops". That's smart to remind us that some people are living these kind of situation daily. Sophie Marceau is playing in an horrible way. She is over acting like a cartoon character and that's not the way to play an already disastrous script. Danny Boon is more subtle and this was the way to do it. Juliette Arnaud is doing well too, Anny Duperey is ... well I love her so I'm going to describe her in this movie, as it must be an error, or she needed some money...whatever that's awful. The end is probably the worse part. Sophie Marceau violently use a stolen police car against cops who try to stop her, while yelling how much she loves him in the megaphone. And finally conclude after the cops gently help her to go out from the car, go to the court and when she goes out say that she he will certainly have a big fine! Really? Does anyone read the scripts in France before the state finance all these folks? Because what she does with her car would drive anyone in prison for 10 years or more in most countries (including France I think) or worse, they may just shot at you to stop it. But in this movie they almost thanks her, she is in love, and blablabla... that's so funny. At the end, you feel some pity for Sophie Marceau to have to act in such a lame scene, crying her love in a megaphone while squashing cops with a stolen police car...such a shame for a good idea, with good actors. Could have been a good movie, but miss it by far!

... or "turkey" in English. For those who still haven't understood, this film is a total waste (of money, talent & time). The director flunked the funny, witty, edgy tone of the novel, a book which illustrated the surrealistic 'pitch' (a man and wife switch life to see how it's like to be 'on the other side') with just enough irony to be somewhat "realistic" (which wasn't the point). The "TV prime-time movies" standards being what they are, all the acid juice has turned into lukewarm syrup, breeding a romantic comedy which is repellent from A to Z. The mess even gradually becomes a catalogue of stereotyped characters, dismissing along the way 30 years of feminism (of course, women CRRRRAVE to buy jewelry while slouching on the pool side, or they would KILLLLL to buy the services of a male model who would do handiwork at their homes). The story basically consists in sending men & women back to back, stating that the war of sexes is useless since "both have good and bad sides". Hoho, what a breakthrough in humor, intelligence and cinema in general ! All this with overacting (and under-directed) actors, thrown under the laziest camera in the world. Times are hard for comedy fans...