Pédale douce

Gay comedies are a hard genre to master with any subtlety; one side of the fence is occupied by movies made to mock gays for 'straight' amusement, and the other side is to mock straights for 'gay' amusement. Right off the top, I'll say that I enjoyed this film. Not wildly, as 20+ years ago I enjoyed 'La Cage aux Folles,' yet nevertheless it was involving, good characterization, well-edited and paced. Yet, yet . . . . One of the hurdles for most viewers is that the film is deeply rooted in the French gay cultural scene. And if the viewer isn't familiar with that milieu, it will seem as if the film was set in the late '70s or '80s. Everything that the viewer knows or may have heard about gay life in the USA in those years seems very alive here. The point is, that IS the way Paris is, even now. While trend-setting on a variety of fronts, France has NEVER set the pace for gay culture, that honor belongs to the USA. Thus there is a soundtrack out of the Gloria Gaynor days (different songs, but reminiscent of 'Priscilla of the Desert,') and the large background cast of gay characters are reminiscent of times long gone on this side of the Atlantic. If the viewer can accept that '80s-style gay party life is still alive and well in Paris in 1996, then there won't be any jarring sense of "whoa - when was this film made?" The top-billed star is Patrick Timsit in the role of Adrien, the gay main character who loves Eva, longtime friend and owner of a gay establishment. He thinks of her as family, and even says so at one point in the movie. But the STAR of this film is Fanny Ardant (Eva), who easily steals every single scene she is in and not without reason. There is a rather flimsy opening setup about how all the characters meet - Adrien is negociating a deal with Alexandre, a banker, played by Richard Berry (sorry, Gtran, but he's the banker, not the client), and soon various wives, lovers, 'tricks' and others are all in on the act. For anyone not familiar with Ms. Ardant, she is an undiluted joy (go rent 'Ridicule,' now!). Ferociously handsome, wearing her emotions on her face (and her clothes quite well, too)while keeping her heart hidden, she engages the viewer as few actress do anymore (French actresses have a talent for that). I found Mr. Timsit arch and shrill at times, without the underlying tenderness and pathos that invested every moment of Michel Serrault's Zaza Napoli of 1978, but he suffices. Richard Berry does a fine job as a 'hetero' forced to open his horizons a bit while pursuing Eva. Michèle Laroque has the unenviable job of the 'clueless wife,' but her hesitancy and luminous beauty play very well here. Jacques Gamblin as Lemoine, Alexandre's aide, tries very hard to portray a man still caught in the 'it's hard to come out' milieu of Paris (which is, sadly, still true), but he lacks a certain "je ne sais quoi" to quite pull it off successfully; with time, he may very well become a great actor. There are a thousand and one jokes in this film that will only be understandable to francophones - and Parisian French is fast, clipped and very argotic (I can't speak about sub-titling, as I saw a VO [version originale], but I can imagine the inability to relay the sense of the original in subtitles). If you can speak French WELL, you'll laugh a lot. The nod to '90's/21st-century sensibilities about AIDS-awareness is last-minute and feels very false, thrown in as a sop. Rent the movie - it is a cult classic in France, for a variety of reasons. However, I will give you one more: as you watch this film, ponder the differences between American and French culture and consider why, in France of all places, homosexuality is still shameful.

Twenty years after `La cage aux folles', `Pédale douce' revisits the comedy that has gay characters as main comic devices. Obviously, times have changed, and while the Cage's heroes were hysterical, outrageous `queens', gays in a 1996 comedy need to be more realistic. Here, Adrien and his friends are gay top bank executives who have to deal with Alexandre, a powerful, über-macho client. Because he's in love with Eva, Adrian's best female friend and gay club owner, Alexandre will discover a world he'd known only through the magazines. This is a very rich – sometimes too rich - movie, full of situations, characters and moods, ranging from physical comedy to very moving moments, like the touching and difficult relationship between Adrien and Eva. Though it's very funny, the general tone is bittersweet : everybody in this movie is not exactly what he/she thinks he/she is, and will have to cope, more or less successfully, with this discovery. AIDS looms over the characters. The movie has been criticized for recycling most of the clichés about gay culture (the characters may be bank executives, but they still act a little like the Cage's Zaza Napoli), and for being ultimately conservative (gays remain gays and straights remain straights). Still, Pédale douce is very enjoyable, and wonderfully played, with a special mention for Fanny Ardant as the complex, sensitive Eva.

Even for the 90s this film could set back gay liberation decades more. Some reviewers compare it to La Cage aux Folles, but unlike La Cage, which was well written farce and hilariously funny, Pédale Douce tries to veer from comedy into dramatic territory, but is so weakly written that it ends up misfiring on all fronts. It's not even fair to say it's politically incorrect; it's just so wrong in every way that I can only imagine it was written by clueless straight people or even more clueless gays. There are so many cringeworthy moments when I wanted to turn it off, but the only thing that kept me watching was Fanny Ardant, who is radiant despite the script and ridiculous characterizations. She can do a coffee commercial and make it seem marvelous, and she is marvelous to watch even here. However, asides from a couple of sexy moments, it takes determination to withstand the rest. Pédale Douce translates to "soft pedal" but lame pedal would be more apt.