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Starring Romain Duris, Fabrice Luchini
Directed by Laurent Tirard
In 1658, Jean-Baptiste Moliere was the French answer to, well, if not William Shakespeare at least Oscar Wilde.
His gift for writing sharp, witty satire filled playhouses, yet he wanted more. As a writer and actor, he wanted to be taken seriously.
Then, according to this light-hearted extraction of speculative events, Moliere got the best part of his life.
Aristocratic Jourdain sought lessons in acting to seduce a young woman and enlists Moliere who assumes the role of a visiting priest. Jourdain’s wife smells an impostor, uncovers the deceit and seduces him.
There’s more – naturellement – and it wouldn’t be Moliere without people placed in all manner of moral and immoral dilemmas. Elegant and effortless, Moliere overflows with reverence for and references to its subject’s life and work, and will entrance and delight his fans.
This is also the film’s weak point. For the less familiar, it is an entertaining romp that acquires an air of distance; as if it is in on a joke it’s not sharing.
That said, Tirard neatly balances fun and wit and issues, rather as the serio-comic playwright intended. In many ways, Moliere is the French answer to Shakespeare in Love and pleasingly, one without an eye on the international box office.
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