Giddy
comedy about middle-aged house hunters who find more in a bargain buy than anyone but director Quentin Dupieux could have dreamed
Those who have seen Quentin Dupieux’s strange comedy Deerskin, with Jean Dujardin as a murderous would-be cinéaste obsessed with the sartorial superiority of his fringed deerskin jacket, or any of the film-maker’s other wacky adventures, will have an idea what to expect of this latest romp. They may also be justifiably unsure whether to find his movies irresistible or insufferable. I am still undecided in some ways. Incredible But True has a wacky premise that Dupieux very possibly had no idea how to develop. And yet I found myself laughing quite a lot of the time. The sheer silliness and zen pointlessness is entertaining. It’s a film with something of Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze or early Woody Allen, mixed with a French version of the Carry Ons.
Alain Chabat and Léa Drucker play Alain and Marie, a couple of middle-aged house-hunters being shown a shabby place in the suburbs. The estate agent perplexes the pair by excitedly showing them the house’s special feature: a hole in the basement that, through an interesting Escher-style quirk, leads down into the upstairs bedroom. You wind up higher than you were before. And not only that: the hole in the basement has a second, sensational magic power that astonishes them. The house is a metaphysical wonder at an affordable price. They buy it and Marie becomes obsessed with their house’s “duct”. Meanwhile, the couple’s near-neighbour, who is also Alain’s boss, has a problem: Gégé (Benoît Magimel) has had an electronic penis installed using untested Japanese technology and it is far from trouble-free.