Edmond
Directed by Alexis Michalik
Starring Thomas Solivérés, Olivier Gourmet, Tom Leeb and Mathilde Seigner
Showing nationally as part of the Alliance Francaise French Film Festival
Edmond is (very) loosely based on the 1897 opening night of French playwright Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, which played for more than 300 nights and has been a mainstay of French theatre ever since.
Cyrano’s story, one of the great tragedies, is that of a marvellously poetic hero who loves a woman from afar. However, she loves his better-looking, unpoetic friend and never knows that the beautiful letters that have moved her heart are actually written by Cyrano.
The movie plot pays homage to that story as if in a circus mirror. The film is a broad farce – but not a bedroom farce – in which egomaniacal actors, shifty financiers and mistaken identities produce confused emotions and mayhem.
There is one magnificent pratfall.
Politically, this film has little to say. This is purely one for activists tired after a hard week. Drink a glass of nice red wine, settle down and laugh until you hyperventilate.