The Minister in question is France’s Foreign Secretary and although the script is based on the popular graphic novels of Abel Lanzac (the nom de plume for Antoin Baudry) the story is based on the antics of Dominique de Villepain a real Minister who went on to become Prime Minister. And that’s the main reason why this oddball of a comedy that relies on the fact you know its a satire falls so flat to anyone not au fait with the French political scene. The garrulous windbag of a Minister who thinks he is impressing his staff with his endless stream of platitudes hires a new writer to put some fresh impetus into his major set piece speeches. That’s what what he tells Arthur his new scribe, who quickly discovers that his new Boss rarely reads anything presented to him, and if pressed to do so, will skim through it quickly and promptly ask for an immediate re-write using all his own cliched phrases.
Arthur also has to deal with all his colleagues who are desperate to defend their own positions in the Ministerial hierarchy so that they sabotage the speeches in private too whilst sucking up to the Minister in departmental meetings. There is only one voice of sanity in the whole place, and it belongs to M. Maupas the Minister’s Chief of Staff who also actually is the only person in the place who actually gets any real work done.
The Minister is a right wing politician and as such wants to push his xenophobic policies that he incessantly pontificates changing his position like the wind but wily elderly left wing M. Maupas makes sure that it’s his agenda that succeeds. Played sublimely by the veteran actor Niels Arestrup, he is the one real joy in this very flat piece.
It’s a strange choice of material for the French auteur Bernard Tavernier who is best known for his big historical epics like ‘The Princess of Montpensier’ and I’m sure that back in France where everyone recognises the joker in the piece, the film is a helluva lot funnier. Here is seems like one weak joke just stretched too thin.
Available at Amazon
★★★★
