Le Dîner de Cons (film)

Le Dîner de Cons
Film Poster
Directed by	Francis Veber
Produced by	Alain Poiré
Written by	Francis Veber
Starring	Thierry Lhermitte Jacques Villeret
Cinematography	Luciano Tovoli
Editing by	Georges Klotz
Distributed by	Gaumont
Release date(s)	15 April 1998 (1998-04-15)
Running time	87 minutes
Country	France
Language	French
Box office	78,599,508 ₣

Le Dîner de Cons (English: "Dinner for Cretins")^[1], marketed as The Dinner Game in the USA, is a 1998 French comedy film written and directed by Francis Veber. It is a cinema adaptation by Veber of his play Le Dîner de Cons.

Cast

• Jacques Villeret as François Pignon
• Thierry Lhermitte as Pierre Brochant
• Francis Huster as Juste Leblanc
• Alexandra Vandernoot as Christine Brochant
• Daniel Prévost as Lucien Cheval
• Catherine Frot as Marlène Sasseur
• Edgar Givry as Jean Cordier
• Christian Pereirra as Le docteur Sorbier
• Pétronille Moss as Mademoiselle Blond

Story

Pierre Brochant, a Parisian publisher, attends a weekly "idiots' dinner", where guests, who are prominent Parisian businessmen, must bring along an "idiot" who the other guests can ridicule. At the end of the dinner, the evening's champion idiot is selected.

With the help of an "idiot scout", Brochant manages to find a "gem", François Pignon, a Finance Ministry employee whose passion is building replicas of landmarks with matchsticks. When Brochant starts to suffer from a bad back, his wife, Christine, leaves him shortly before Pignon arrives at his apartment, as she realizes that he still wants to go to the "idiots' dinner". Brochant initially wants Pignon to leave, but instead becomes reliant on him, because of his back problem and his need to resolve his relationship problems.

He solicits Pignon's assistance in making a series of telephone calls to locate his wife, but Pignon gaffes each time, including revealing the existence of Brochant's mistress, Marlene Sasseur, to his wife Christine and inviting Lucien Cheval, a tax inspector, to Brochant's house where, in an attempt to disguise his tax evasion, Brochant is forced to quickly hide most of his valuables.

In the meantime, Brochant is able to make amends with an old friend, Juste LeBlanc, from whom he stole Christine, and through the evening's events is forced to reassess his mistakes.

Awards

At the 1999 César Awards, the film was honored with six nominations of which it won three. The categories where it won were Best Actor for Jacques Villeret,^[2] Best Supporting Actor for Daniel Prévost and Best Screenplay for Francis Veber. It was nominated but did not win for Best Film, Veber as Best Director and Catherine Frot as Best Supporting Actress.

Other adaptations

• The Hindi cinema remake, Bheja Fry, was released on April 13, 2007.

• An American remake starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd called Dinner for Schmucks was released on July 30, 2010.

• A Chinese remake of the film comes in the form of a stage show at the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre starring Canadian freelance performer Dashan as Pierre Brochant.^[3]

• A Malayalam movie adaptation titled April Fool was released in 2010.

• A Kannada movie with title Mr. Garagasa starring Komal and Anant Nag released in summer of 2008.

References

1. ^ The last word is difficult to translate directly into English, as the equivalent English word, "cunt", is considered unacceptably vulgar: see Bradshaw, Peter (2 July 1999). "Con trick". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/1999/jul/02/4. Retrieved 23 January 2011. . "Asshole" is the best equivalent.
2. ^ Tomasovitch, Geoffroy (16 February 2007). "Mystères autour de l'héritage de Jacques Villeret". leparisien.fr. http://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/mysteres-autour-de-l-heritage-de-jacques-villeret-16-02-2007-2007774088.php. Retrieved 23 January 2011. 
3. ^ ""Le Dîner de Cons" (The Dinner Game)". Dashan Online. http://www.dashan.com.cn/en/projects/dinner.htm. Retrieved 4 August 2010. ^{[dead link]}

External links

• Le Dîner de Cons (film) at the Internet Movie Database
• Le dîner de cons in PDF, Francis Veber Play at FranceInfo.US