Le Coeur des hommes (2003)
Directed by Marc Esposito

Film Review

Despite forging a successful career as a journalist, Marc Esposito had a hankering to be a film director since he was a teenager.  He was finally able to fulfil his ambition, delivering a film that was not only a critical and commercial hit in France, but one of the most popular French film comedies of the year (with an impressive audience of 1.5 million on its first release).  Indeed, such was the appeal of Le Coeur des hommes that it resulted in two sequels, the imaginatively titled Le Coeur des hommes 2 (2007) and Le Coeur des hommes 3 (2013).

The premise of Esposito's film is one that has been tried before and oft repeated since, but rarely as successfully.  A group of middle-aged men band together to nurse each other through their various (entirely predictable) mid-life crises, involving the usual travails of work, family and love life.  There's a distinct dearth of originality in the script, and most of the gags can be seen from a distance of at least 100 kilometres.  Neither is Esposito's direction anything to write home about - it gets the job done but has little to distinguish it from the usual journeyman handling of a bog standard television movie.

Le Coeur des hommes's appeal lies exclusively in the amiable foursome of lead actors that consist of Bernard Campan, Gérard Darmon Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Marc Lavoine, each of whom rises to the occasion and makes this an irresistible ensemble.  In spite of some pretty mediocre screenwriting, which simplifies male-female relationships to the point of comic book absurdity in a few places, each of the male leads manages to turn in a nuanced and believable performance that really does convey something of the anguish of the male menopause.  Alex's incessant bed-hopping antics make an amusing counterpoint to Antoine's inner turmoil on discovering his supposed model wife's infidelity.

There is a warmth and sincerity to the relationship between the four principals that is hard to resist, and even though the film is painfully lacking in substance and originality, it more than manages to make the grade as a likeable feel-good offering.  Le Coeur des hommes may not be great cinema but it is an enjoyable good-natured romp, one that celebrates the worth of male friendship with a highly palatable blend of humour and sobriety.

Film Synopsis

Alex, Manu, Jeff and Antoine have been the best of friends since they played in the same football team, twenty years ago.  Now they are in their fifties, with their best years behind them, they are each faced with a personal crisis which forces them to re-evaluate their lives.  Luckily, they can all count on their buddies for moral support.  Manu, the father of three grown-up children, still hasn't come to terms with the recent death of his own father and struggles to provide his mother with the help she needs.  Life becomes even more complicated for him when he falls for one of his customers, a dreamer named Juliette.

Alex is an inveterate philanderer who has no qualms over cheating on his wife Nanou.  For all his meticulous attempts to conceal his numerous infidelities from his wife and daughter, Alex's marriage is coming under ever-increasing strain.  Despite his friends' attempts to persuade him to change his ways, Alex remains the eternal Don Juan - but for how much longer?  Jeff publishes a sports magazine with Alex and is now under pressure from his shareholders to cut staff numbers.  Meanwhile, he agonises over whether he should marry Elsa, a woman who is half his age.  Antoine, the most sensitive and seemingly well-adjusted of the four friends, finds his life suddenly upended one day when his wife Lili confesses to having been unfaithful to him, So disgusted is he by this revelation that he immediately turns his back on his family and checks into a cheap hotel...