The Closet

What a delight to walk into a movie theater, hear the Chaplinesque music begin, and laugh while watching the French comedy, The Closet-especially during the summer blockbuster deluge when finding a quality film is like coming across an oasis in the desert. This is a film with gay/lesbian sensibilities that can play well with a crossover more mainstream crowd, as long as American audiences will tolerate reading the subtitles.

Still-lingering thoughts of how Hollywood takes a good thing and turns it into dreck came to mind while watching The Closet. Foreign countries make the best gay themed comedies only to see Hollywood mangle La Cage Aux Folies with Robin Williams prancing about, and transform the outstanding Priscilla, Queen of the Desert into banal tripe with Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze hamming it up as drag queens in the Americanized version. Actually some of these fears occur because writer/director Francis Veber actually wrote the screenplay for The Birdcage, only this time turning the premise of La Cage 180 degrees by having a straight man feign being gay.

Well-known French film star Daniel Auteuil plays nebbish accountant François Pignon, who learns that he is about to be fired from the rubber manufacturing plant. Also despondent from his two-year-old divorce and from his estrangement from his son Franck (Stanislas Crevillén), Pignon contemplates ending it all until a friendly new neighbor intervenes. His new friend Belone (Michel Aumont) devises a scheme to save his job-spread a rumor that François is gay, so that the politically correctness will compel the company to keep him on. Besides, it makes perfect economic sense as well since the company's main revenue comes from its condom production. They certainly do not want to alienate the homosexual community.

Wisely Verber doesn't have Auteuil go the flamboyant route, correctly perceiving that it will come across as fake. It's far more interesting to see how people's reactions to him change with the new "knowledge" that the accountant is gay. These are largely predictable, but many small moments provide enjoyment-like how Pignon's female co-workers eye his ass and observe his walk from the backside for any signs of swishyness.

The plant's personnel director, Félix Santini (played by France's most famous actor Gerard Depardieu), has established himself as the company's biggest homophobe, but now worries that his job will be jeopardized because of his intolerance. That sets up a practical joke situation for his friends, who'd like to see him tone down his verbal gay bashing. They convince him to make friendly overtures to Pignon, which come across as blatantly gay. The funniest scene occurs in a classy restaurant with Santini awkwardly making conversation, eventually explaining his rugby obsession by stating that he really loves the locker room camaraderie with the naked players after the game.

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