French comedy is too often accused of evolving in a hermetic microcosm of our society not to salute the initiative of Guignols defectors Charlot and Magnier. Their first production deliberately hits the nail on the head, focusing on the zealous employees of a regional Pôle Emploi agency who are so quick to write off their claimants and make them despair that they attract the attention of their superiors. Indeed, with no unemployed, their services become useless, and it's their turn to check in. Now it's up to them to use their imagination to prove that they are indispensable. Les Têtes de l'emploi is the kind of ferocious comedy that French cinema produces far too few of, and it cultivates a delightful kinship with two other illustrious schools: Great Britain, which is as quick to produce Ken Loach and Mike Leigh as The Full Monty and Les Virtuoses, and the great Italian tradition exemplified by Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi and Ettore Scola. Franck Dubosc's radical portrayal of the prodigal son of a tribe of cynical, profiteering welfare recipients reveals his variable-geometry humanity, opposite François-Xavier Demaison, who is as pat as they come, and Elsa Zylberstein, who plays a false white goose. There's a politically incorrect glee to this vitriolic chronicle, which drifts into the absurd when our nickel-and-diminishers recruit staff for a factory that's about to open, by rehiring the worst of the worst.
Jean-Philippe GUERAND
French film by Alexandre CHARLOT and Franck MAGNIER (2016), with Franck DUBOSC, François-Xavier DEMAISON, Elsa ZYLBERSTEIN. 1h 30.
