Le Jumeau (1984)
Directed by Yves Robert

Film Review

After the phenomenal success of their earlier collaborations - Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire (1972) and Le Retour du grand blond (1974), director Yves Robert and comic actor Pierre Richard teamed up for more of the same - a spirited comedy romp that extracts as much humour as it can from its zanily over-convoluted plot.  Le Jumeau may not be in the league of those previous Robert-Richard collaborations (both classics of French film comedy) but it is a good-natured non-stop farce that allows Richard ample scope to show just why he was one of the most popular French comic performers of his day.

Today, Robert is most widely regarded for his 1990 diptych La Gloire de mon père / Le Château de ma mère, a bittersweet account of the childhood of the playwright-cineaste Marcel Pagnol, but before this he was one of the pillars of mainstream French cinema, with a particular penchant for riotous comedy (he was also an actor of some ability).  The films he made with Pierre Richard were among his most commercially successful, and few other directors employed the actor's immense comedic talents so skilfully.  Le Jumeau may not have impressed the critics but it still managed to attract an audience of 1.7 million.

With the dual role offered by Le Jumeau, Richard impresses not only with his unflagging comic flair but also with his talent as an actor, creating two contrasting personas for the supposed twins.  It is a performance that must rate has one of his best, despite being somewhat handicapped by a needlessly complicated script that goes completely off the rails towards the end.  The film isn't great, but it stands up better today than its American remake Two Much (1995), which was directed by Fernando Trueba, with Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith and Daryl Hannah in the principal roles.

Film Synopsis

Matthias Duval is a 30-something businessman with a fatal addiction to gambling.  A night spent at the poker table during his holiday on the Riviera ends with him being seriously out of pocket, but then - for once - Lady Luck smiles on him.  As soon as he catches sight of Liz Kerner, a rich and beautiful American, he knows he is in love.  They spend the night together and it is then that Liz reveals she has a twin sister named Betty.  Naturally, Matthias is keen to make Betty's acquaintance, and when he sees her Cupid repeats the same trick on him: he is love-struck for a second time.

Matthias knows that he cannot have both women for himself - that would be greedy.  So, he invents for himself an identical twin brother, Mathieu, and it is as Mathieu that he begins making love to Betty.  In contrast to the out-going adventurer Mathias, Matthieu is a mild-mannered intellectual. They may look the same, but they are very different in their tastes and behaviour - at least that is the fiction which Matthias hopes to keep up.

Unbeknown to our hero, Liz and Betty are both equally keen to get married so that they can fulfil the terms of a will made by their parents, who died a few weeks previously.  The first of the sisters to marry will inherit the bulk of their parents' vast fortune, which is how Mathias suddenly finds himself with two offers of marriage.  No sooner has he tied the knot with Betty than he is coerced by Liz into marrying her, in return for a generous monthly allowance.

Just when things couldn't be going better for Mathias he receives an unexpected visit from the Kerner family lawyer, Ernest Volpinex.  To his horror, Mathias is about to discover that his deception has been uncovered.  By assuming a false identity, he has committed both fraud and bigamy.  A heated argument with the lawyer ends with Mathias accidentally killing his tormenter...