Dom, a sad looking sap of a man, is the night porter at a cheap shabby hotel in the seaport of Le Havre. As he is settling in for another quiet night Fiona, barefoot and with just the clothes she stands in, walks in and asks for a room, and then announces that she is a Fairy and will grant Dom three wishes. He chooses two: a motor scooter and free gasoline for life, which he gets but then he is stuck as to what to use his third wish on.
Fiona is as nutty as a fruitcake but that doesn’t stop simple Dom falling head over heals for her. When she suddenly vanishes, Dom tracks her down to the local mental hospital where she is an inpatient. She’s now pregnant but luckily for her as this is a magical farce she balloons out in minutes and not months and their baby is born very soon after that. And they live happily ever after. Well, its not quite as simple as that, but that’s the gist of the plot, which frankly is not that essential in the telling of this story. In this wonderful somewhat bizarre gentle slapstick comedy/farce that is very much in the tradition of silent movies, there are a series of unrelated side strands that add little to moving the plot along but a great deal to the enjoyment of the piece. Like the so-called English traveller that hides his dog in his bag when he checks into the hotel and the ‘bag’ then runs around on its own. And the African gentlemen that live on the beach in an abandoned wreck of a car that they insist on trying to repair for their planned illegal entry into England.
I absolutely adored this sweet and very silly film … it reminded me very much of the marvelous deadpan comedy of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki (maybe also be the fact that it was shot in Le Havre like his last movie). This is not side-splitting funny but there are a couple of truly comic genius moments like when Dom smuggles a pregnant Fiona out of the hospital in his oversized raincoat, or when Fiona goes shoplifting. If you like the subtly of the humour of ‘The Artist‘ then I think you will like this one too.
It’s the work of a Belgian based trio of comics who jointly wrote, directed and starred in this their 3rd movie. Two of them, Dominique Abel and Fiona Gordon who play the leads uncannily look the same. Their work is not showy or unrestrained but is quietly absurd and if it appeals to you ( and this will certainly not be everyone’s cup of tea) it will have you grinning from ear to ear and chuckling to yourself.
You don’t have to believe in fairies to enjoy this movie, but then again, it might help.
P.S. And Dom never did use his 3rd wish but maybe the happy ending was his unspoken one after all.
