Blog From The Bench

From the always venerable Merchant Ivory Productions comes Merci Docteur Rey, a comedy about parents and children, Americans and the French, opera and murder. It’ll hit store shelves on Aug. 9, 2005, courtesy of Image Entertainment.

An American opera singer (Dianne Wiest, Edward Scissorhands) and her 20-something son (Stanislas Merhar, Adolphe) are living together in Paris, and yet growing farther apart. She spends her days prepping in front of the mirror, while he’s made a hobby out of experimenting with personal ads. Meanwhile, an actress (Jane Birkin, The Last September) finds her neuroses in overdrive after the untimely death of her therapist. Naturally, everyone’s lives get mixed with up with each other. Secrets are kept, identities are mistaken, dead bodies start piling up, and what’s that jar of mayonnaise doing there?

This is a somewhat confused film. The script is quite witty, with several clever lines and running jokes. But the actors deliver all their lines with such a feeling of world-weary dread that it’s difficult to wring any genuine laughs from their performances. Back in full Bullets Over Broadway mode, Wiest fares better than the rest, and is as good as she always is. Plot-wise, much of what happens depends on a handful of highly improbable coincidences, which are likely to get the most forgiving filmgoers’ heads spin. Visually, though, the movie is a real treat, with bright vibrant colors in almost every scene, helped along by a pristine DVD transfer. Likewise, the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround is solid, with no evident flaws.

Things get a little tricky when going over the language options. See, about half the movie is spoken in English, and the other half in French, depending on what the scene is and which characters are involved. There are three subtitle options. “None” gives you English subtitles for just the French dialogue. “English” provides these subtitles for every line regardless of the language. “Spanish” does the same, except, you know, in Spanish. But if you’re French, and you want to enjoy this French movie translated into French, then that’s just tough merde.

So Merci Doctuer Rey is amusing but falls just short of being a great comedy. For more info, go here or here.