This is a new approach to comedy. It isn't funny.
The joke is that this, in and of itself, is supposed to be funny.
The story is based on a French short story, located in Paris, and the characters have French names. Louis Aubinard, for example ... played by ... Bob Hoskins? The movie also stars the equally French Jeff Goldblum and Natasha Richardson. The situations are similar to and the characters perform as if in those Carry-On movies from years back.
I believe these are also jokes - to cast these actors who make no attempt to act French in any way, to have them cavort in the manner of broad English dance hall comedy, and to leave the whole bloomin' mystery unexplained to the audience.
In the humour department, this is practically the Algonquin Round Table, isn't it?
The movie tries to be charming and quirky, and I guess these characteristics are sort of funny. Not as funny as Duck Soup or Love and Death, perhaps, but funnier than The Deer Hunter or The Battleship Potemkin.
It is an example of personal filmmaking. It makes no real effort to reach out and share with the audience, but stays true to its premise and its internal logic. Although all the situations are unbelievable, they are logical within the film's own bizarro world.
I generally like this kind of eccentric movie, but I found this one to be paced too slowly, to be dull-witted, tedious, and to provide too few pleasurable surprises or genuine wit. It just kind of meanders in predictable and sophomoric ways, and wastes some wonderful talents along the way. It has to be the low point in the career of each of the major stars, who are all otherwise distinguished players. I found it to be the biggest waste of talent since The Betsy, and I wish I had never seen Goldblum and Hoskins in this thing.
So, call it an interesting miss, and pass on it as a rental unless you really have a lot of time to kill.
