THE best French comedy in several years highlights the 11th annual Rendez-Vous with French Cinema, a rotating series of films open ing tonight at Lincoln Center.
This year, additional screenings will be held at the gorgeous new art-house multiplex, the IFC Center at Sixth Avenue and Third Street. This is the only opportunity New Yorkers will have to see some of these films (all in French with subtitles) on the big screen.
Tonight’s opening, “Palais Royal!” marks a triumphant return to French whimsy.
It’s a delightful comedy about a pot-smoking, unemployed slacker (Lambert Wilson) who finds himself suddenly acceding to the throne of a small country after his father the king dies and his older brother is disqualified.
He soon learns to love his polo outfits and even takes a mistress like any good king.
But his speech-therapist wife, forced to quit her job, can’t keep her tiara from falling in her soup. Gradually, she learns how to step out of the background and steal the spotlight from her philandering husband and her bitchy mother-in-law, the Queen – played by France’s reigning monarch of movies, Catherine Deneuve.
Valérie Lemercier is not only brilliant as the princess, but also wrote and directed the film, which seems loosely based on the life of Princess Diana. Hollywood will be clamoring to remake it with a big-name actress.
Tickets to the festival, which continues through March 19, are available at the IFC Center and Walter Reade Theater and on filmlinc.com and ifccenter.com. Some other highlights, roughly in order of preference:
* “Russian Dolls”: This sequel to the slacker comedy “L’Auberge Espagnol” is more reflective and mature, reminiscent of the later films in Truffaut’s Antoine Doinel series. “Amélie” star Audrey Tautou is back, though she plays a supporting role as the ex of Xavier, a hack writer on the brink of 30 meditating on the women in his life. He’s played by Romain Duris (“The Beat That My Heart Skipped”).
* “Orchestra Seats”: Lemercier returns as a neurotic D-list actress in a slice-of-life comedy-drama about unhappy upper-class Parisians who learn a few things from their encounters with a plucky waitress (Cécile de France, who is also a star of “Russian Dolls”).
* “La Moustache”: A successful man (Vincent Lindon) decides to shave off his moustache, but nobody notices – not even his wife (Emmanuelle Devos of “Kings and Queen”). Is she trying to drive him crazy? Did he ever have the mustache in the first place? Thriller writer Emmanuel Carrére’s debut as writer-director is like “Gaslight” rewritten by Camus.
* “Not Here to Be Loved”: Slow-moving and told without dialogue for long stretches, this character drama is a simple, elegant story about a heartless middle-age bailiff (Patrick Chesnais) who doesn’t much like his father, his son or himself. He begins to thaw when he takes a tango class and meets a young bride-to-be (Anne Consigny) with a disarming smile.
* “Housewarming”: Wacky comedy about a human rights lawyer and single mom (Carole Bouquet) who finds herself with a home full of illegal immigrants when she orders renovations on her apartment. Watch for a cameo by Hugh Grant.
* “Grey Souls”: Intense psychological WWI drama about a cold-blooded prosecutor and the pretty young schoolteacher who moves to his small town.
* “Cold Showers”: Coming of age comedy turns serious as a high-school judo athlete and his sexy girlfriend get stuck in a love triangle with another guy.
* “Le Petit Lieutenant”: Rookie cop deals with new boss, a recovering alcoholic (Nathalie Baye).
