Les Clefs de bagnole (2003)
Directed by Laurent Baffie

Film Synopsis

Lawrence Baffie has what he believes to be a stunning premise for a film - a comedy that will have audiences rolling in the aisles and critics falling over themselves in their efforts to come up with the juiciest superlatives with which to shower it in the popular press.  Unfortunately, Baffie has never made a film before, so finding a producer willing to back his first project is not the easiest of undertakings.  In fact, it is starting to look like mission impossible.  He already has a winning plot and a superb title - Les Clefs de bagnole - so all he needs now is a large tub of money and a suitably bankable lead actor.  If he can only persuade Daniel Russo to play the leading role, his job will be half done!  So what is this comedy masterpiece about?  Well, it stems from an unbelievable but true statistic.  According to a serious scientific study, a man who drives for sixty years will spend on average twenty-three days of his life searching for his car keys.  Twenty-three days!  That's enough time to make a film...

Baffie's film is about an ordinary Joe who spends ninety minutes looking for his car keys when he finds they are no longer where they should be - in the right-hand pocket of his jeans.  In his efforts to find the missing keys, our hero searches high and low and gets himself into all sorts of wacky adventures, before it finally dawns on him what a total idiot he has been.  The keys turn out to be where he least expected to find them - in his left trouser pocket!  What a punch-line!  Of course, the beauty of Baffie's film is that it is far more than just a wonderfully observed comedy, packed with enough laughs to send you into a deep coma.  It is also a poignant allegory about life.  If Baffie intended his debut film to be the most vivid representation of the utter pointlessness of existence, he has succeeded way beyond his wildest dreams...