The Valet
Encyclopedia
The Valet is a 2006 French comedy film
written and directed by Francis Veber
. The screenplay focuses on a parking valet
who is enlisted to impersonate the lover of a famous fashion
model
in order to deflect attention from her relationship with a married businessman.
ian executive involved in an affair with top model Elena Simonsen. When a paparazzo
catches the two of them departing their secret hideaway and their photograph is published on the front page of the local newspaper, Pierre's wife Christine confronts him. He claims he has no idea who the woman is, and that she must have been a companion of the man seen walking beside them. Fully aware of Pierre's difficult situation, Elena gives him an ultimatum: he must choose between her and his wife. Because Christine is the majority shareholder of his business, Pierre is in danger of losing his fortune if he divorce
s her. His lawyer Maître Foix advises him the only way to resolve the issue is to find the anonymous man in the photo and have him pose as Elena's lover.
The anonymous man is the hapless François Pignon, a parking valet who is in love with bookstore owner Émilie. Deep in debt and worried about her business, she has turned down his marriage proposal because she believes she has too much on her plate, and thinks of him as a brother. Meanwhile, Maître Foix locates François and offers him money to let Elena move in with him and pretend they are a couple. François agrees and asks for 32,450 euros: the exact amount of money that will pay off Émilie's debts. Meanwhile, Elena demands 20 million euros to participate in the sham relationship, a sum she keeps as a deposit that she will return to Pierre when he leaves his wife. Dislodging his friend and roommate Richard, Elena moves in with François, who is overwhelmed by the situation, but the two quickly become friends.
Christine is not fooled and plays the situation for all it is worth, making her husband jealous of François and Elena's living situation. Émilie, too, is confused and upset to see François and Elena together. Eventually, Elena explains the situation to Émilie, who is grateful for the funding François requested for her, and she acquires a newfound respect for him and eventually accepts François' proposal.
In the meantime, Christine secretly tape records Pierre saying he has no intention of leaving her for Elena and offering to take his wife on a second honeymoon
. When she sends the tape to Elena, Elena decides to leave Pierre. She notifies Pierre of her leaving by sending François to meet him in her car at a secret rendezvous point. François conveys the news to Pierre who angrily responds that he has voided the 20 million euro transfer. François then tells Pierre that Elena anticipated this of him and indicates that she never wanted the money implying that Elena leaves the relationship with a clean split. François then walks away from the limo as a cross-dressing prostitute approaches Pierre and the two are filmed by a paparazzo.
in screenwriter/director Francis Veber's films Les Compères
(1983), Le Dîner de Cons (1998), and The Closet (2001), although the characters are not the same person. The film also makes a reference to The Dinner Game during a scene in the movie. François gives his dad, André, a corkscrew as a birthday present. André then mentions that he has even been invited to dinner to talk about his passion and collection of corkscrews.
The film was shot on location in Boulogne-Billancourt
, Neuilly-sur-Seine
, and Puteaux
, all located in the département
of Hauts-de-Seine
.
, The Valet offers a reassuring vision of a fixed social order, bourgeois to the core, in which virtue is rewarded and hubris exposed."
Mick LaSalle
of the San Francisco Chronicle
called it "an enjoyable farce, with lots of laughs and a strong cast." He observed, "At 80 minutes long, it's that rare case of a short film that should have been longer. And that's its problem: It really should have been longer. This is not just a matter of wishing the pleasure might have been extended. The comparative shortness is indicative, rather, of the movie's sole flaw: Veber doesn't know how to end his movie. True, he knows how the audience would like the story to resolve, and he does get there. But he doesn't find a mechanically interesting way to do it. After putting this wonderful machinery in place, he more or less just pulls the plug. He ties things up quickly with a couple of pleasant but lackluster scenes and gets out, leaving the movie feeling truncated. Fine. If he couldn't come up with a great ending, at least he didn't belabor it, and along the way The Valet is a total pleasure."
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
said, "Making people laugh is the specialty of the house where French writer-director Francis Veber is concerned, and he is awfully good at it. A complete master of cinematic farce, Veber's latest venture . . . makes creating deliciously funny comedy look a lot easier than it has any right to . . . While some of the sight gags on view in The Valet have roots that go back to the great silent clowns, Veber's innate understanding of what makes people laugh, his gift for impeccable timing and for getting his cast to work together like interlocking parts of a fine machine, are difficult to resist."
A Bollywood film called Do Knot Disturb starring Govinda and Ritesh Deshmukh is a blatant copy of this film. Bollywood has seen the copy of "The Dinner Game", a film by the same director, served to them as Bheja Fry.
Lisa Nesselson of Variety
said, "Even though you can hear the clockwork mechanism ticking, comic craftsman Francis Veber . . . has tooled another bigscreen timepiece with a fun premise and satisfying quotient of laughs."
, ShoWest
, and the Cleveland International Film Festival
before going into limited release in the US on April 20, 2007. The film eventually grossed $1,926,800 in the US and $27,400,068 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $29,326,868.
but lost to Kad Merad
for Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas
. Alice Taglioni won the NRJ Ciné Award for Actress of the Year.
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
written and directed by Francis Veber
Francis Veber
Francis Paul Veber is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, and theater playwright. Many of his French comedies feature recurring types of characters, named François Pignon and François Perrin...
. The screenplay focuses on a parking valet
Valet parking
Valet parking is a parking service offered by some restaurants, stores, and other businesses, particularly in North America. In contrast to "self-parking", where customers find a parking space on their own, customers' vehicles are parked for them by a person called a valet...
who is enlisted to impersonate the lover of a famous fashion
Fashion
Fashion, a general term for a currently popular style or practice, especially in clothing, foot wear, or accessories. Fashion references to anything that is the current trend in look and dress up of a person...
model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
in order to deflect attention from her relationship with a married businessman.
Plot
Pierre Levasseur is a wealthy married ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
ian executive involved in an affair with top model Elena Simonsen. When a paparazzo
Paparazzi
Paparazzi is an Italian term used to refer to photojournalists who specialize in candid photography of celebrities, politicians, and other prominent people...
catches the two of them departing their secret hideaway and their photograph is published on the front page of the local newspaper, Pierre's wife Christine confronts him. He claims he has no idea who the woman is, and that she must have been a companion of the man seen walking beside them. Fully aware of Pierre's difficult situation, Elena gives him an ultimatum: he must choose between her and his wife. Because Christine is the majority shareholder of his business, Pierre is in danger of losing his fortune if he divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
s her. His lawyer Maître Foix advises him the only way to resolve the issue is to find the anonymous man in the photo and have him pose as Elena's lover.
The anonymous man is the hapless François Pignon, a parking valet who is in love with bookstore owner Émilie. Deep in debt and worried about her business, she has turned down his marriage proposal because she believes she has too much on her plate, and thinks of him as a brother. Meanwhile, Maître Foix locates François and offers him money to let Elena move in with him and pretend they are a couple. François agrees and asks for 32,450 euros: the exact amount of money that will pay off Émilie's debts. Meanwhile, Elena demands 20 million euros to participate in the sham relationship, a sum she keeps as a deposit that she will return to Pierre when he leaves his wife. Dislodging his friend and roommate Richard, Elena moves in with François, who is overwhelmed by the situation, but the two quickly become friends.
Christine is not fooled and plays the situation for all it is worth, making her husband jealous of François and Elena's living situation. Émilie, too, is confused and upset to see François and Elena together. Eventually, Elena explains the situation to Émilie, who is grateful for the funding François requested for her, and she acquires a newfound respect for him and eventually accepts François' proposal.
In the meantime, Christine secretly tape records Pierre saying he has no intention of leaving her for Elena and offering to take his wife on a second honeymoon
Honeymoon
-History:One early reference to a honeymoon is in Deuteronomy 24:5 “When a man is newly wed, he need not go out on a military expedition, nor shall any public duty be imposed on him...
. When she sends the tape to Elena, Elena decides to leave Pierre. She notifies Pierre of her leaving by sending François to meet him in her car at a secret rendezvous point. François conveys the news to Pierre who angrily responds that he has voided the 20 million euro transfer. François then tells Pierre that Elena anticipated this of him and indicates that she never wanted the money implying that Elena leaves the relationship with a clean split. François then walks away from the limo as a cross-dressing prostitute approaches Pierre and the two are filmed by a paparazzo.
Cast
- Gad ElmalehGad ElmalehGad Elmaleh is a French-Moroccan stand-up comedian and actor. His latest show is called Papa est en haut . He has starred in several feature films, including Coco, Hors de prix, La Doublure and Midnight in Paris.- Early years :Elmaleh was born in Casablanca, Morocco...
as François Pignon - Alice TaglioniAlice TaglioniAlice Taglioni is a French actress. She has a film Paris Manhattan coming out in 2011 where she will star with Patrick Bruel and Woody Allen it is directed by Sophie Lellouche.- Filmography :* Dandy * Jet Lag...
as Elena Simonsen - Daniel AuteuilDaniel AuteuilDaniel Auteuil is a French film, television and theatre actor.-Early life and education:He was born in Algiers, French Algeria.-Career:...
as Pierre Levasseur - Kristin Scott ThomasKristin Scott ThomasKristin A. Scott Thomas, OBE is an English actress who has also acquired French nationality. She gained international recognition in the 1990s for her roles in Bitter Moon, Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient....
as Christine Levasseur - Richard BerryRichard Berry (actor)Richard Berry is a French actor, film director and screenwriter. He has appeared in nearly 100 films since 1972. He starred in The Violin Player, which was entered into the 1994 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
as Maître Foix - Virginie LedoyenVirginie LedoyenVirginie Fernandez , known by her stage name Virginie Ledoyen, is a French actress.-Life and career:She was born in Aubervilliers, Paris, the daughter of Olga, a restaurateur, and Bernard Fernandez, a merchant who sold cleaning products. Her paternal grandfather was Spanish...
as Émilie - Dany BoonDany BoonDany Boon is a French comedian who has acted both on the stage and the screen. He takes his stage name from the television show Daniel Boone.-Life and career:...
as Richard - Michel JonaszMichel JonaszMichel Jonasz is a French composer-songwriter, singer and actor. His compositions include: La boîte de jazz, Joueurs de blues and Les vacances au bord de la mer....
as André Pignon - Noémie LenoirNoémie LenoirNoémie Lenoir is a French model and actress of African and European descent.-Career:Lenoir was first spotted by Ford Models when she was 16 years old. In 1995, Lenoir signed with L'Oréal, and has since appeared in their advertisements alongside Laetitia Casta and long-term model and actress Andie...
as Karine - Karl LagerfeldKarl LagerfeldKarl Lagerfeld is a German fashion designer, artist and photographer based in Paris. He has collaborated on a variety of fashion and art related projects, most notably as head designer and creative director for the fashion house Chanel...
as Himself
Production
François Pignon also is the name of the protagonistProtagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
in screenwriter/director Francis Veber's films Les Compères
Les Compères
Les Compères is a 1983 French comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber, and starring Gérard Depardieu, Pierre Richard and Anny Duperey.In 1997, this movie was remade as Fathers' Day in the US.-Plot:...
(1983), Le Dîner de Cons (1998), and The Closet (2001), although the characters are not the same person. The film also makes a reference to The Dinner Game during a scene in the movie. François gives his dad, André, a corkscrew as a birthday present. André then mentions that he has even been invited to dinner to talk about his passion and collection of corkscrews.
The film was shot on location in Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt
Boulogne-Billancourt is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the centre of Paris. Boulogne-Billancourt is a sub-prefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and the seat of the Arrondissement of Boulogne-Billancourt....
, Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
, and Puteaux
Puteaux
Puteaux is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located in the heart of the Hauts-de-Seine department from the center of Paris....
, all located in the département
Départements of France
The departments of France are French administrative divisions. The 101 departments form one of the three levels of local government, together with the 22 metropolitan and 5 overseas regions above them and more than 36 000 communes beneath them...
of Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris...
.
Critical reception
Stephen Holden of the New York Times called the film "a delectable comedy" and added, "Francis Veber . . . is a master of the modern French farce. And this film has the same tight structure and carefully plotted surprises and reversals as his earlier comedies The Dinner Game and The Closet. These movies are wonderfully frothy contrivances, built with traditional machinery from models that have been around for centuries . . . Because its structure and the targets of its satire — vanity, greed and lust — hark back to MolièreMolière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, The Valet offers a reassuring vision of a fixed social order, bourgeois to the core, in which virtue is rewarded and hubris exposed."
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle is an American Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] Mick LaSalle is an [[United States|American]] [[film reviewer] and the author of two books on pre-[[Motion Picture Production Code|Hays Code]] Hollywood...
of the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
called it "an enjoyable farce, with lots of laughs and a strong cast." He observed, "At 80 minutes long, it's that rare case of a short film that should have been longer. And that's its problem: It really should have been longer. This is not just a matter of wishing the pleasure might have been extended. The comparative shortness is indicative, rather, of the movie's sole flaw: Veber doesn't know how to end his movie. True, he knows how the audience would like the story to resolve, and he does get there. But he doesn't find a mechanically interesting way to do it. After putting this wonderful machinery in place, he more or less just pulls the plug. He ties things up quickly with a couple of pleasant but lackluster scenes and gets out, leaving the movie feeling truncated. Fine. If he couldn't come up with a great ending, at least he didn't belabor it, and along the way The Valet is a total pleasure."
Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
said, "Making people laugh is the specialty of the house where French writer-director Francis Veber is concerned, and he is awfully good at it. A complete master of cinematic farce, Veber's latest venture . . . makes creating deliciously funny comedy look a lot easier than it has any right to . . . While some of the sight gags on view in The Valet have roots that go back to the great silent clowns, Veber's innate understanding of what makes people laugh, his gift for impeccable timing and for getting his cast to work together like interlocking parts of a fine machine, are difficult to resist."
A Bollywood film called Do Knot Disturb starring Govinda and Ritesh Deshmukh is a blatant copy of this film. Bollywood has seen the copy of "The Dinner Game", a film by the same director, served to them as Bheja Fry.
Lisa Nesselson of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
said, "Even though you can hear the clockwork mechanism ticking, comic craftsman Francis Veber . . . has tooled another bigscreen timepiece with a fun premise and satisfying quotient of laughs."
Box office
The film was released in France and Belgium on March 20, 2006. It was shown at the Moscow Film Festival, the Vancouver International Film FestivalVancouver International Film Festival
The Vancouver International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for two weeks in late September and early October...
, ShoWest
National Association of Theatre Owners
The National Association of Theatre Owners is a trade organization based in the United States whose members are the owners of movie theaters. Most major theater chains are members, as are many independent theatre operators; collectively, they account for the operation of over 26,000 motion...
, and the Cleveland International Film Festival
Cleveland International Film Festival
The Cleveland International Film Festival, first held in 1977, is the largest film festival in Ohio. The 2010 festival featured over 300 films. Since 1991 the festival has been held at Tower City Cinemas in downtown Cleveland.-Roxanne T...
before going into limited release in the US on April 20, 2007. The film eventually grossed $1,926,800 in the US and $27,400,068 in foreign markets for a total worldwide box office of $29,326,868.
Accolades
Dany Boon was nominated for the César Award for Best Actor in a Supporting RoleCésar Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role
List of winners and nominees of the César Award for Best Supporting Actor .-1970s:-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-References:...
but lost to Kad Merad
Kad Merad
Kad Merad, real name Kaddour Merad, is a French-Algerian actor who has acted both on stage and on screen.-As actor:* 2001: La Grande Vie ! - le motard* 2003: Bloody Christmas - l'homme...
for Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas
Je vais bien, ne t'en fais pas
I'm Fine, Don't Worry is a 2006 French drama film directed by Philippe Lioret based on the 2000 novel with the same title by Olivier Adam.-Plot:...
. Alice Taglioni won the NRJ Ciné Award for Actress of the Year.