User Reviews

This has had a certain amount of bad-mouthing in France and after more than two weeks on release no one has yet seen fit to post a comment. Okay, the original, dating from 1932, is considered a classic and rightly so; Michel Simon and Jean Renoir ARE a tough act to follow but Gerard Depardieu and Gerard Jugnot are not exactly chopped liver if anybody asks you and in my opinion they've taken an honorable stab at remaking a classic and equally honorably chosen to move the locale from Paris to Aix-en-Provence and switch the original Bookstore to an Antique shop. Neither Depardieu nor Jugnot is in need of acting lessons or, in the case of Jugnot, directing lessons so it's no surprise that they have turned out a fine light comedy and it does no harm at all that Catherine Frot is on hand as Jugnot's wife who winds up in the sack with Depardieu. This isn't the first time I've had occasion to discuss Frot's amazing range and with luck it won't be the last. Here she is nothing less than delightful pulling out all the comedy stops in her considerable repertoire. Relative newcomer Constance Dolle, an Audrey Tautau look-alike is also on hand to brighten up the proceedings and a good time is had by all. Well worth 7-8 stars.

For the first time of my life I went to a sneak preview and I was full of great expectations, but unfortunately everything I got was Jugnot's "Boudu".

The plot is fast told, Jugnot plays a bourgeois and narrow-minded art dealer, who saves a homeless (crankily played by Depardieu) from drowning and generously lets him spend one night at his home. In return Depardieu turns Jugnot's whole life totally upside down. At first everybody in the small french town is disgusted by Boudu's habits, but the better the people get to know him, the more Boudu changes everyone's life in a positive way.

"Boudu" is above all or even solely appropriate for confirmed Depardieu- or French-Comedy-Fans.

Depardieu perfectly fits the role of "Boudu", playing Boudu's rude and plump character gave him visible pleasure.

But the comparatively trivial plot and the inevitable vulgar jokes (f.ex. Depardieu's white and hairy butt, curse or beat-jokes) tire the spectator already after a short period. The bettering of the the people's lives due to Boudu's presence as well as the questionable socio-critical ending are very unrealistic. Why Jugnot's wife and his cute assistant are attracted to a disgusting homeless like Boudu and even sleep with him is as shady as the fact that Jugnot even forgives him and says he loves him, after he finds out, that Boudu has impregnated his wife.

The film lacks above all originality,(for it is a remake of the 1932 Renoir-Classic "Boudu saved from downing").

It is definitely an film, nobody needs, except those, who cannot get enough of Gerard Depardieu.

Boudu is a remake, but after three-quarters of a century, not three-quarters of an hour, as in Hollywood (which dearly wants to wipe out French cinema and is actively working to that end). What's more, this is a perfect comedy in itself, with dozens of nicely observed touches, such as the house-painter who pulls his pants out of his crack whenever he gets out of the car. Boudu is a mythological creature, as the operatic score points up. He should have hairy legs, hooves and two little horns, plus an enormous omphallos as in the ancient Roman theatre. Europeans pick up on these themes unconsciously, whereas Americans have no such equipment and would not know what to make of this bizarre cuckoo comedy, let alone sub-titles, which they will only accept from Mel Gibson's films in obscure forgotten tongues. Few Hollywood stars would have the wit to play the female leads in this film: the frustrated wife and the chaste ingenue. And what Hollywood star would fail to overact in Gerard Jugnot's role? As for Depardieu, the role could have been written for him. With his heart operation scar showing clearly in one scene we have to realise that one day he will be gone and life, as Boudu sagely says, is all too short. "You can't capture the wind," he says as he walks out of their lives, and the viewer cannot help feeling a pang of regret. This is a gem of the story-telling art, in the ancient tradition of Boccaccio's Decameron. Don't miss it if you see it going by!