Beautiful Lies or De Vrais Mensonges (2010)

film

Sometimes, a cliché manages to transcend its own inanity and become a classic statement we can all rely on, regardless of context. So, from the pages of sporting journalism comes the notorious, “[insert sport] is a game of two halves”, i.e. a team can occupy the field or court like a motley crew of novices for the first period of play, then remember they are supposed to be top professionals and win the game in the second period. Of course this works the other way round when the team falls to pieces and loses in the most spectacular fashion possible.

 

Beautiful Lies or De Vrais Mensonges is a film of two halves. It starts off as a delightful comedy with a mismatched group of people running a hairdressing salon in Sete, a delightful French town on the Mediterranean coast. Frankly, it’s not at all clear this motley crew could keep any kind of business running. I suppose that’s, in part, where the humour emerges with Émilie Dandrieux (Audrey Tautou) as one of the two partners, more intent on asserting her own sense of style no matter what the paying customers want, Sylvia (Stéphanie Lagarde) as the other partner who just wants to have a quiet life, and Paulette (Judith Chemla) who’s afflicted by terminal shyness as the receptionist. Inserted into this unlikely mess is Jean (Sami Bouajila). He’s had something of a nervous breakdown as a top-level interpreter working for UNESCO and now makes a living as a jobbing builder and general factotum around the salon. Thanks to his quiet competence, the partnership is able to develop a sauna, rewire the premises and find all the towels folded when needed for customers. For him, seeing Émilie is love at first sight. But his self-confidence is at such a low ebb, all he can do is write an anonymous “love” letter.

Audrey Tautou and Sami Bouajila briefly able to look at each other without flinching

 

This takes us into the dangerous waters first explored in the stage version of Cyrano de Bergerac where the identity of who writes what to whom becomes the central plot device. In this case, our shy man recovering from a nervous breakdown writes the first letter to Émilie. She’s recovering from a failed marriage and is almost totally self-absorbed except, out of duty, she attempts to raise the morale of her mother. Some four years ago, her father left and has now managed to get his young girlfriend pregnant. Like her daughter, Maddy Dandrieux (Nathalie Baye) has retreated from the world, preferring to wallow in self-pity, sitting around the house in her nightdress rather than rebuilding her life. A divorce will leave her even more depressed. So Émilie has the wonderful idea of sending the anonymous letter on to her mother. As is necessary for this plot to work, Maddy goes from manic sadness to manic joy in the space of a heartbeat. She is worshipped from afar. Life is wonderful again! Émilie must now create more letters. All this comes nicely to the boil when the ever-reliable Jean runs out of stamps and, rather than force Émilie to wait, sets out to hand-deliver the second fake letter.

Natalie Baye in the positive phase of her increasingly bipolar disorder

 

Except it’s at this point we enter the second half of the film. What was light and amusing, becomes dark and distinctly amoral. Worse, what little credibility was enjoyed by Audrey Tautou’s Émilie disappears out of the window. Although it’s a stretch, I can just about believe this woman could be a partner in a successful business but, when she finds herself caught out by her own deception, I don’t believe she would resort to offering Jean €600 to sleep with her depressed mother. If this is a “romcom” and she’s expected to end up with Jean herself, she would never pimp him as a gigolo. Yet we are forced to watch Jean driven towards a second breakdown as he realises the manic unpleasantness of the women now seeking to exploit him. Rather than spoil the ending, I will stop here but believe me when I tell you that no-one comes out this this looking good.

 

Indeed, the ending is somewhat depressing as the characters’ credibility is sacrificed to the needs of the plot. It all stands or falls on the performances from our three principals, all the other parts being mere cyphers. Screenwriting credits go to Benoît Graffin and Pierre Salvadori who also directed. Rather than allowing the comic possibilities to emerge naturally, as in the pleasant surprise of discovering that Paulette actually has a brain, the writers create a parallel universe where the Dandrieux women, both of whom exhibit increasingly severe symptoms of mental disorder, do whatever they deem expedient short of kidnapping to get what they want. If we go back to the original Cyrano, we’re expected to believe he would not only pay Christian de Neuvillette to talk for him, but also to sleep with Roxane. I don’t think that works as comedy and neither Audrey Tautou nor Nathalie Baye can make their characters even remotely likeable. So Beautiful Lies or De Vrais Mensonges also stops being a comedy and demonstrates how lies are almost always ugly and hurt those exposed to them. A shame really because it all started off so brightly, but then film-making has always been a game of two halves.