O Espírito da Festa

Um filme para relaxar de feel-good com um personagem principal e vinte personagens secundários que como se fossem interpretados por figurantes talvez talentosos, mas não muito interessantes. Senti falta dos atores mais distintos nisto, o tipo de comediantes franceses que levantam o humor apenas pela sua aparência e expressões faciais. Conseguiria até ver o ator principal a desempenhar um papel secundário mais sólido. (13/11/2017)

My third encounter with the works of the Toledano and Nakache duo turned out better than expected, even though (or perhaps precisely because of it) it is a completely different concept and style of humor than the one they succeeded with worldwide in the case of The Intouchables. As has been said by others, this film is not a slapstick comedy, but a pleasant, easily flowing film underscored by relaxing music, which has the ambition to evoke a slight smile in several places, rather than a burst of laughter. Although the setting of a wedding feast may suggest that the film is one of the countless variations of romantic comedies, the opposite is true. C'est la vie! is a comedic story set in a working collective environment, which is a subgenre that was once popular in the countries of the Eastern Bloc. In this film, people work hard- admittedly, not always effectively- in an exemplary collaboration and with expected results. The ensemble of relatively unknown actors to me does a reliable job and all I can say is that I enjoyed myself exactly as the directing duo intended. Personally, I am not fond of filmmaking based on distorted characters, but here the absence of the main character replaced by a multitude of supporting characters with one or two important appearances came across as highly functional. Overall impression: 90%. (17/05/2021)

A variation of Truffaut's Day for Night, only movie backstage is replaced by the unique wedding backstage of one of the parties which is attended by Murphy´s Laws. It´s very nice (at least for the male part of the audience) purely from the point of view of the wedding agency, and not of the wedding guests, so despite the main them it´s not a romance. Not even remotely. As much as it is a comedy, sometimes even very funny one, it would be a mistake to expect something that makes you laugh all the time. Here you will have a constant smile on your face rather than laughing like a crazy person. (01/09/2018)

Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache set a very high bar for themselves with The Intouchables, and now they've come up with another original idea, but for a French film made by great filmmakers it doesn’t have enough balls. Clearly watching a wedding from the perspectives of the caterers hasn't been done before, I guess, and putting together the perfect wedding is certainly no easy job. I expected there to be a lot more of those screw-ups and, especially towards the end, I was hoping it would escalate into a bigger mess. There is quite a bit of humour, there are intelligent dialogues and reflections, but it didn't happen that I caught myself laughing at least once. That said, I enjoyed the duo of Gilles Lellouche and Eye Haidara, but there is a lack of a more prominent French comedic presence and it's easily noticeable in this film. Decent, but the potential was greater. 65%. (12/04/2018)

I’m not particularly fond of French cinema. With a few exceptions, I've mostly been treated to depressing dramas or comedies full of frantic humor relying on the tradition of silent slapstick comedy. What I was expecting from this film was affected humor and tear-jerking romance, but I was only momentarily misled by the title. Firstly, I was glad to find that the main character was well past his twenties. Secondly, there was a long series of disasters in which Max managed to keep a cool head most of the time, so it wasn’t like those crazy comedies in the style of Louis de Funes and I enjoyed the film. I found out what jobs I would definitely never want to do, and I must appreciate the excellent character of the photographer, he was perfect. (08/07/2018)