My Best Friend

Francois (Daniel Auteuil) meets with Catherine (Julie Gayet) in the comedy "My Best Friend."

Man waiting on a friend in French film

Francois Coste is a wheeler and a dealer, but he thinks he?s a regular guy.
He attends the funeral for a supposed friend, only because he wants to buy some merchandise from the widow.
When he meets with other supposed friends for dinner, he comments that there were few attending the deceased's services.
The Coste character is shocked when a business partner, played by Julie Durand, suggests when he dies, nobody will attend the service. Everyone at the dinner party quickly agrees.
Thus reveals the premise for "Mon Meilleur Ami," better known as "My Best Friend."
This thought-provoking 2006 independent film stars Daniel Auteuil, best known as the slow-witted nephew in the "Jean de Florette" and "Manon of the Spring" films.
Auteuil's character is taken back by the comment and the animosity displayed by people he thought were friends.
United in their disdain for him, he declares he indeed has friends and is given a deadline to reveal a friend to the group.
It's sort of a mature takeoff on the old film cliche about the teen virgin who makes a bet he will have sex by a certain date.
Francois collects antique items as cheaply as possible and sells them at a profit. He outbids one art lover for a vase that dates before Christ. Francois offers the vase at cost, in exchange for the art lover's friendship. He declines.
Francois enlists a taxi driver to take him around Paris as he seeks a friend.
In a sad but funny scene, Francois spots an old grade school contemporary going into a grocery store.
He follows the man and his wife around the store like a puppy dog looking for a chew toy. The couple tries to ignore him, but he persists. Francois maintains school chums are the only true friends and they last forever. He tries to get himself invited for dinner. The pair are horrified.
Finally, outside the store, the former fellow student tells Francois he couldn?t stand him in school and can?t stand him now and nobody else in school could stand him either.
My what a kick in the groin.
Slowly he gets to know the cab driver who is helping him, Bruno, played by Dany Boon. Francois hires Bruno to teach him how to be a friend and slowly they do become friends, well, as much as Francois can have a friend.
The film unfolds slowly but smartly. Hey, it's little more than 90 minutes long.
It's the kind of film Hollywood probably wouldn?t make, unless they could put Paris Hilton in it as the cab driver and the Francois character has so many days to bed her and keep her panties for a souvenir.
That's why films like this are a nice change of pace.
The biggest criticism I have is that the Francois character isn?t nasty enough to be lothed this much. Maybe we just have to trust the other characters when they say he is bad news.
It won?t have a profound influence on your life, but I liked the premise and found and its characters and plot worth exploring.

Mon Meilleur Ami
(My Best Friend)
In French with English subtitles available
94 minutes
Rated PG-13 for strong language
Three stars out of four

This appeared in the Star Beacon Weekender on Feb. 22, 2008.