Réalisateur/Director: Artus de Penguern
Scén./Script: Artus de Penguern, Jérôme L'Hotsky
Avec/With: Artus de Penguern, Pascale Arbillot, Elisabeth Vitali, Antoine Duléry, Serge Riaboukine, Didier Benureau, François Berland, Marie-Armelle Deguy
Photo/Cinematography by: Vincent Mathias
Mus. : Benoît Pimont
Prod. : Cyril Colbeau-Justin
Société Prod./Prod.co: LGM
Copro. : M6 Films, Rhône-Alpes Cinéma, SFP Cinéma, Sparkling
Ventes à l'étranger /World sales: Mercure Distribution
Prix /Awards:
Jubilantly hilarious and inventive, Gregoire Moulin Versus Humanity centres on a series of misadventures. Here's a film to make you feel better about yourself!
The life of hapless, shy, short, cleft-chinned Gregoire has been riddled with stress. It all starting soon after his birth at the Franz Kafka Clinic, when his parents met their joint demise arguing over their son's future profession.
Raised in the suburbs by unsympathetic relatives, Gregoire is in his 30s when he finally makes it to Paris. He takes on a job at an insurance office, which has a view of a ballet studio. He silently falls for lithe, bookish Odile (Pascale Arbillot) who teaches dance and is as sweetly adrift from the assertive mainstream as he is.
Unable to work up the nerve to introduce himself, he steals her wallet in a restaurant, then telephones her to return it, pretending to be a disinterested stranger. But - due to some hilarious interlocking misunderstandings and hiccups - their rendezvous is thwarted a dozen times over...
Unfailingly polite and earnest, Gregoire suffers the brunt of every prank, sometimes simply because he's not interested in soccer! Who else would attempt to return a wallet on the night of a decisive, 'all-France-is-watching' soccer match.
The director, co-writer and star Artus De Penguern (who had a small role in Amelie as Hipolyte, the mopey, unpublished writer) has graduated from widely-acclaimed short films to the feature arena with this gut-wrenchingly mordant comedy. His brand of deadpan humour immediately reminds one of Buster Keaton.
Few film-makers could conjure a plausible excuse for Mahatma Gandhi and Darth Vader to watch TV together! This innovative and unpredictable comedy recalls the humour and dark turns of Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich.
Le malchanceux et toujours célibataire Grégoire, anxieux et inhibé au dernier degré, n'ose pas aborder la belle Odile. Usant d'un subterfuge inavouable, il arrange un rendez-vous au café Le Penalty. Hélas, sa maladresse et le peu d'amabilité du Parisien moyen vont transformer ce simple rendez-vous en une cauchemardesque course-poursuite...