With A Friend Like Harry...

In the French film "With a Friend Like Harry...", husband and wife Michel and Claire have become accustomed to small miseries, even on vacation. Their car lacks air conditioning, causing their children to squall and pout; their vacation home is actually a rustic mess that resists all efforts to make it presentable; Michel's parents, living near the home, constantly provide unsolicited advice and money, to the delight of neither spouse.

When Michel runs into Harry, an old schoolmate, in a highway rest stop bathroom, things seem to improve. Harry and his fiancee Plum invite themselves over for drinks, taking the kids in their air-conditioned Mercedes; they stay the night, and inject a bit of carefree verve into the household. But it soon becomes apparent that Harry is a classic cinematic psycho, one who has nurtured an obsession with Michel since their respective boyhoods and is determined to become Michel's closest friend by any means necessary. Standard creepiness ensues, from misplaced generosity to gratuitous advice to helpful killings.

Despite this classic thriller setup, "With a Friend Like Harry..." does not frighten in the least. There's very little tension as such, and the relentlessly flat direction precludes much involvement in the psychological horrors these characters undergo.

That's okay, because this film ends up being a comedy.

The French are different, as anyone who has ever tried to understand structural functionalism (or functional structuralism) knows. Indeed, pumping humor ever-so-surreptitiously into a thriller conceit, and thus forcing cliched twists and turns of a standard plot to parody themselves, is something that persons of most nationalities would not think to do. Fortunately, writer/director Dominik Moll and his cast have the ability and the inclination to do it well, and "With a Friend Like Harry..." overcomes its awkwardly translated title to provide a crafty and delightful entertainment.

Our first clue that this film may be designed for laughs rather than chills is our first glimpse of Michel, as splendidly realized by Laurent Lucas. His sloppy hair, slouchy posture and deep-set eyes combine to give him a supremely hangdog air, which Laurent uses to hilarious effect when Michel engages in some "Simpsons"-esque banter with his bratty daughters en route to vacation.

Sergi Lopez, as Harry, makes a splendid foil for Lucas, all strangely pinched smiles and nervous gestures and facial expressions that flicker on and off. The scene in which Harry and Michel begin their reacquaintance is classic: Laurent exhausted and uncomprehending, bracing himself on the sink so he doesn't fall over, and Lopez chipper and perfectly postured, obviously cultivating an air of insouciant geniality. Lopez's strained mannerisms work equally well for a figure of humor and a figure of menace, and his ability to live in the gray area in between those two extremes does a lot to make this film work.

The two women, Claire and Plum, are less prominent, but the actresses who portray them make them significant figures in the story. Mathilde Seigner plays Claire as what we have come to think of as a standard cinematic French wife - stylish, smart, slightly blase and secretly passionate. Sophie Gullemin, as Plum, manages the trick of looking more like Drew Barrymore than Drew Barrymore does; emphasizing her ample cleavage and big, empty eyes, Gullemin makes Plum a parody of herself from the very beginning. In classic French fashion, she admits that she knows she is superficial, and even as she maintains a calm good nature does absolutely nothing to disprove it.

When the film moves from pure comedy into dry parody, Moll manages the tonal shift expertly. Moll undermines the genre he borrows with the utmost subtlety; even when it is revealed that Harry's obsession with Michel stems from a outrageously bad poem which had appeared in their school's literary magazine, he refuses to emphasize the absurdity of the goings-on. There are very few "laugh lines" as such; Moll relies upon the audience to recognize for itself the humor in situations, rather than pointing them to it. "Scary Movie" this is not.

But Moll also denies emphasis to the thriller plot elements, presenting them with a flatness that emphasizes their inherent absurdity. With Moll unwilling to commit too much either way, the meaning of the events is up in the air for much of the film, even if the ending does come down emphatically for comedy. It's a tricky piece of work, and it redounds to Moll's credit that it is executed so well.

Not everyone will enjoy this film. It requires work, as noted above, and Moll's direction will seem maddeningly cryptic to many viewers. But if you like this kind of French movie (and you know who you are), you'll find "Harry" to be a friend indeed.

NSIDE THE MIND (SUCH AS IT IS) OF A MOVIE REVIEWER

The phrase missing from the description of Harry is "Dubya-esque." Sergi Lopez's character really does seem a lot like a Frenchified version of our new President, right down to the inherited wealth and weird nicknaming. There are a few reasons why I did not use this characterization in my actual review:

1. No one, not even me, really flat-out wants to think of the President as a psycho killer dude. Plus this could be construed as ajudgment of our President's charcter which I do not intend to make. I think a lot of negative things about our President, but psycho killer isn't one of them, although four years is a long time.
2. Lopez is probably more French than Dubya-esque, although that's just another way of saying he's really freaking French.
3. Saying Harry is "Dubya-esque" calls up a whole bunch of other associations which are irrelevant to the movie itself. The description as it stands is more precise language. I have decided to go on another"precision in language" kick, which means I scare myself into not writing anything unless it is going to be absolutely perfect, which means I write very little unless I forget to care about precision in language. The above review is written in fairly precise language, although I'm sure if I took the next two hours to look at it, I could find numerous errors of various kinds to correct. But, as at least one person on this list knows, I'm supposed to have five minutes of coherent thoughts about Quintilian for tomorrow, and Tara, really, I do not plan to let the group down. I'll do it just as soon as I get finished with this sentence.

CORRECTION

In a recent Spam-O-Matic marginal note, I said that "[Sergi] Lopez is probably more French than Dubya-esque, although that's just another way of saying he's really freaking French." Gregorio Villalobos has pointed out, and the Internet Movie Database has confirmed, that Lopez is actually Catalan. The fact that I could look at a name like Sergi Lopez and not bat an eye at calling him "really freaking French" says something about Lopez's acting ability, or the nature of borders in the new Europe, or the new multiculturalism and its beachhead in my tiny brain, or something else. Nevertheless, I shall lead the cheers for Gregorio: Thank you for making the Spam-O-Matic slightly more accurate than it otherwise would have been! You're a stand-up guy.

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