My Best Friend (Mon Meilleur Ami) - Reaction

[French]

A lovely, sensitive, sweet French comedy-drama about an antiques dealer who needs to find a true friend, not a contact or business associate. Given the setting and the way unexpected twists appear, the clearly contrived premise may even stray into sit-com territory. Nevertheless, the result is a good, rewarding film that may be called a romantic-comedy--just one about male friendship rather than romance--or better yet a "buddy movie." The great acting is a nice bonus.

Although my description may make the film sound light, it's actually pregnant with sentimental humanist themes about the difficulty of making new friends and about the meaning of friendship. Or, if you're thinking a little darker, it could be about using gifts to compensate for social alienation. That is, should you buy your friends? Regardless of how you read it, the director has made "cannily crafted entertainment" (Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com) that combines "sympathy for his characters with a quick wit, a dark undertow and a love of human peculiarity" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).