An actor I’ve always been fascinated by – as much by his name as anything else – is French star Lambert Wilson.
As his name implies, he’s entirely bilingual - English and French – despite being born in Paris and having his biggest hits in France, notably a recent triumph as General Charles de Gaulle.
In A Great Friend, Wilson plays Vincent Delcour - billionaire, entrepreneur and philanthropist - a man who has everything, but also has an awful lot of people depending on him.
Photo: Supplied
He’s the envy of the world, but is he happy?
It seems not. Recently he’s been subject to panic attacks. He needs to get away, away to the countryside where people are people, not mere items on a spreadsheet.
But the trouble with the countryside is when your car breaks down, you’re dependent on a passing local to help you.
In this case the local is Pierre – played by another veteran French star Grégory Gadebois. Having picked up the stranded Vincent, the taciturn and grumpy Pierre reluctantly lets him stay the night.
But next day, the refreshed Vincent wonders if he can stay longer. This idyllic rural life could be the making of him.
A deal is struck, but then, as Vincent gets to grips with the real country values typified by Pierre, he wonders if there might be a few things he can teach his unsophisticated host about life. And love, perhaps.
After all, it’s plain that Pierre’s making no progress with Camille, the woman of his dreams.
I know it sounds like a routine, French city slicker/country bumpkin farce - the sort of thing we’re used to seeing in films like Dany Boone’s Welcome to the Sticks.
Writer-director Eric Besnard is another veteran whose CV includes comedies, thrillers and period dramas like the recent Delicious, also starring Gadebois.
So, hard to pigeon-hole, and so is A Great Friend. For a start, neither Vincent nor Pierre is quite what they first appear.
Vincent was certainly not born to the hi-tech high life – he’s constantly nagged by memories of his humble beginnings. And nor is Pierre the simple peasant he presents himself as.
Pierre has hidden depths, while the cosmopolitan Vincent has hidden shallows. And the longer the two rub against each other, the more they find themselves drawn together.
The French title was Les Choses Simples – “the simple life”, if you like – but the clumsier-sounding A Great Friend is a better summary of what it’s about.
Like all good movie comedy-dramas, this one depends on character - getting underneath the obvious surface to find unexpected nooks and crannies. Will Vincent learn to shut up, for instance? Will Pierre ever loosen up, and risk making an idiot of himself now and again?
And they both learn that sometimes the unexpected can happen and you have to deal with it. I had no idea there were bears in the Alps, for instance.
A Great Friend is what happens when you enliven an apparently familiar story with two unfamiliar characters.
In French cinema, a story isn’t always about reaching a convenient conclusion. Sometimes it’s about watching how people change – in this case, from odd couple to great friends. With an ending I didn’t see coming. Not a bad formula for a good movie.
