A Pain in the Ass
What is it about farce that makes it work so well?
Its brand of broad, exaggerated, predictable humour requires little of the viewer. You suspend your disbelief at the door and prepare yourself for an escalating - and sometimes excruciating - series of far-fetched disasters.
A Pain in the Ass began life more than 30 years ago as a French stage play called L’Emmerdeur and has been adapted for the screen at least twice before. This latest version has a kind of dated feel but it doesn’t seem to matter much.
Top-class hitman, Jean Milan (Richard Berry) checks into a hotel in Nice. His target is due to appear in a corruption trial in the courtroom across the street and it’s important that he does not get to testify, despite the intensive security. In the hotel room next door to the hitman, Francois Pignon (Patrick Timsit) plans to commit suicide. His wife has left him for her psychiatrist – cue the couch jokes – and he just can’t go on. When the suicide attempt fails, the lives of the two men become increasingly and disastrously intertwined – cue the mistaken identity jokes.
Crucially, the two hotel rooms are linked by a door, making all of the plot devices workable and the assassination increasingly unlikely.
I think I saw all the elements of farce I was expecting, except ladies in their underwear and men whose trousers keep falling down – are they more typical of English farce, I wonder? Did I laugh? I most certainly did. Did I laugh as much as the director wanted me to, and in all the places he wanted me to? I’m not sure.
Timsit is convincing as the infuriating Pignon and Berry is at his best when he’s the chilling killer. As his plan starts to unravel - and he does too – he’s less believable.
The script works fine - it’s in French with English subtitles – and it has a nice pace, so English-only speakers need to stay on the case so as not to miss any of the subtitles.
A Pain in the Ass is not painful (and there’s no sign of a donkey). It’s an entertaining piece of funny French fluff.
Neil Wilson
