Une famille à louer (2015)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Améris

Film Review

After two intense and involving dramas - L'Homme qui rit (2012) and Marie Heurtin (2014) - French writer-director Jean-Pierre Ameris  returns to somewhat lighter territory for his latest film Une famille à louer, a feel-good rom-com in the vein of his previous chocolate-coated comedy Les Émotifs anonymes (2010).  Ameris again cast the star of this earlier film, the omnipresent Benoît Poelvoorde, in the male lead role, in what is little more than a gauche but amiable reworking of Pretty Woman, with Virginie Efira playing the archetypal hard-up single mum to Poelvoorde's archetypal depressive bachelor businessman, with predictably sparky results.

With two such charismatic and yet strikingly different lead actors, Ameris had the option of making this a seriously funny culture clash comedy, but perversely he plays it safe and opts for a middle-of-the-road romantic comedy where the humour (if you can detect it at all) is of the distinctly low-key and predictable variety.  Une famille à louer is all pretty formulaic and second-hand, but the director gives it the personal touch by garnishing his forced social comedy with the saccharine fairytale trimmings of his previous comic outing.  The result is a sweet, albeit a tad mechanical, little fable that engages at a superficial level without making a particularly deep impression.

Film Synopsis

Paul-André is a shy and introverted forty-year-old.  He has money but he is bored beyond belief and ends up concluding that what he needs most in the world is a family.  His dream looks as if it might be about to come true when he comes into contact with Violette, a lively forty-something who is facing eviction and the possibility of losing custody of her two children.  Convinced that money can buy him anything, even a family, Paul-André offers to hire Violette and her children by settling all of her debts.  It's an arrangement that suits the distressed mother, but just how long will it last...?