Movies you might have missed: The Closet, Francis Veber's comedy set in a condom factory
Francis Veber is a French comic master. The man behind La Cage aux Folles and Le Dîner de Cons can legitimately claim to have written two of the funniest films of the last few decades, masterful farces that will be cherished for generations to come. Le Dîner de Cons, Veber’s masterpiece and a previous subject of this column, was followed by The Closet (2000), another supremely witty comedy of manners that feels like the kind of thing Oscar Wilde would have penned had he been born a century later.
The Closet plays out like the best episode of Frasier never made. Daniel Auteuil stars as François Pignon (the same name as the main character in many Veber films, a trademark of the director), a mild-mannered accountant at a rubber factory that makes condoms. Faced with the very real possibility of redundancy, Pignon is talked down from the ledge by his neighbour with an inspired scheme.
Since the factory needs the support of the gay community, all they need to do is convince the boss that our hero is homosexual and his position should be safe. Using computer trickery, Pignon’s head is inserted into some explicit snapshots and they are anonymously emailed to the man in charge.
Veber’s genius is that he does not have Pignon alter his behaviour one iota. He’s the same unassuming accountant as ever and yet is viewed in a new light by all and sundry, not least his homophobic colleague Félix Santini (Gérard Depardieu) who is desperate to appear friendly since his bullying could now cost him his job. Since Veber wrote La Cage aux Folles two decades earlier and it concerned a gay man pretending to be straight, it feels only right that he should reverse the scenario for this more obscure effort.
The leads are terrific and have the kind of chemistry one might associate with actors in a long-running sitcom but Veber’s script is the real star. The concept is deceptively simple but the execution is anything but as The Closet boasts the kinds of set-pieces most filmmakers would kill for. The astute social commentary is the icing on the cake, especially Pignon’s neighbour who is helping his friend for reasons that are best explained when he says: “I was fired for same reason they're keeping you on. Amazing how things evolve, huh?”
This is a good-natured farce by one of the masters of the art and a worthy addition to a remarkable body of work.
