Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

There's a good chance the film will make you laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, there's an even better chance it will make you openly sob.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

With "Les Babas-Cool" and the master-piece: "Les Valseuses", let's say "Mes Meilleurs Copains" remains the last very good cult movie about the controversial 1968 generation. So what happens really?Five middle age musicians meet their first love during a concert in Paris(a famous Québecois singer called Bernadette Legranbois) and decide to spend the week-end together. There,each one tries to deal with their own problems, about the past and the present, doing the last bereavement of the 1968 period to go and get further in their lives.The numerous flash-backs remind us how silly, ridiculous and hypocritical they were and they have always been. The characters are at the same time funny and ridiculous. The development of the story show us how they have changed their own idea about themselves, about life and how they have evolved towards old bourgeois kind of people. What is really joyful in this movie is not only the dialogs and the acting which are not far from perfect but to see all the 1968 people's portrait of nowadays in French society: You've got the frustrated artist(Philippe Khorsand as Antoine Joubert, definitely the best character in that movie!),still very much convinced crazily jealous,self-centered and amazingly deaf to what his friends say to him. You've got the irresponsible hippie (Jean-Pierre Daroussin as Dany), who has not changed anything from what he was when he was young,an idealistic freak, who makes love in front of his child and lives off his friend.You've got a frustrated homosexual who has not clearly gone out of the closet, who makes sport all the time to calm down his frustration and the lack of sex he's been supporting all the time since 1968(Jean-Pierre Bacri as Guido). And at last, you've got the right-wing "bourgeois" who changed his mind radicaly about society and ideologies and who tries to convince himself he's done the right choice choosing the "family way of life" (Gerard Lanvin as Richard). Christian Clavier (Jean-Michel) is the narrator "bourgeois" but more intellectual, who tries to give weight and credibility to his change of mind. He tries to remain cool, to convince himself he's overcome his first love deception with the Canadian singer in the 1970's by writing a book! I tell you, the film's characters are so pathetic you laugh all the time and you'll figure quite well the portrait of french middle class society who could have emerged during these decades, the very same generation who has tried to deal with the bereavement of their "ideological years". Simply hilarious !!!

Jean-Marie Poire gave us the immortal Le Pere Noel est une ordure, for which we are forever in his debt. This is a less inspired (less wickedly satirical) film about five men and a girl whose lives we follow from the 60's to the 80's. The Big Chill comes to mind, owing to the socio-political commentary that runs throughout.Louise Portal plays the rock singer who had the drive and talent to succeed in the big time when her bandmates were content to raise hell in left-wing agitprop sessions in factories, cafes, etc. She's a staple in Quebec films and TV; it was good to see her versatility. Gerard Lanvin has the Kevin Kline part: wife, kids, who needs the aggravation of adolescent angst relived. Jean-Pierre Darroussin is great as the aging hippy who seems a little brain-damaged. Jean-Pierre Bacri is one of my favorite actors; here he is a gay man who just can't get his emotional life in gear, although he's making lots of money shooting commercials.Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side has been used often enough in soundtracks; here it's very apt, as Bacri's motif. All the songs were well chosen.