Apres Vous is a subtle, gentle comedy that tries to raise smiles rather than belly laughs, and so may not be to everybody's tastes. The ever-reliable Daniel Auteuil plays Antoine, a nice-guy waiter who saves Louis (Jose Garcia) from suicide and, his role in life being to help (or serve) others, feels compelled to straighten out Louis' life to prevent him from taking it again. Unfortunately, these plans don't go quite to plan, and Antoine finds his own life falling apart.
It takes a while to get into this typically Gallic comedy, and there is never anything particularly memorable taking place on screen, but it does reward the patient viewer with an ultimately sweet view of human nature and displays a positive attitude to life, irrespective of the setbacks encountered by us all, which results in all the main characters left in a better position at the end of the movie than at the start. While the character of Antoine is perhaps a little too saintly to be truly believable many would have decked Louis at the point when he accuses his saviour of being selfish Auteuil makes him an immensely likable person, which is just as well as it's up to him to carry most of the film. Garcia is suitably stricken as the hapless Louis, traumatised by the break-up of his relationship with Blanche (Sandrine Kiberlain) and frightened of things falling on top of him. The idea of having these two main characters slowly exchanging their situations (and, to a lesser degree, mental quirks) has you suspecting that things are heading towards a much darker conclusion than they actually do, but the writers manage to manufacture a more uplifting if less likely conclusion.
It takes a while to get into this typically Gallic comedy, and there is never anything particularly memorable taking place on screen, but it does reward the patient viewer with an ultimately sweet view of human nature and displays a positive attitude to life, irrespective of the setbacks encountered by us all, which results in all the main characters left in a better position at the end of the movie than at the start. While the character of Antoine is perhaps a little too saintly to be truly believable many would have decked Louis at the point when he accuses his saviour of being selfish Auteuil makes him an immensely likable person, which is just as well as it's up to him to carry most of the film. Garcia is suitably stricken as the hapless Louis, traumatised by the break-up of his relationship with Blanche (Sandrine Kiberlain) and frightened of things falling on top of him. The idea of having these two main characters slowly exchanging their situations (and, to a lesser degree, mental quirks) has you suspecting that things are heading towards a much darker conclusion than they actually do, but the writers manage to manufacture a more uplifting if less likely conclusion.