Gentle comedy. Unrated. 1 hour, 28 minutes. At the Esquire.
There aren’t many stars left who can get away with overalls and flannel. There aren’t many stars left who’d try.
The overalls Gerard Depardieu wears in “My Afternoons With Margueritte” are kind of chic — pockets that zip, extra room for his tummy. He’s playing a small-town handyman named Germain Chazes. Germain lives in a trailer across the garden from his mother (Claire Maurier) who’s demeaned him from the day he was born. He can be crude and has a big mouth. But his heart is bigger.
That’s why you cast Depardieu in a movie like this. The film isn’t about the actor’s intelligence. It’s about his emotional radiance.
Germain forges a bond over park pigeons with a tiny, elegant, older woman named Margueritte (Gisèle Casadesus). Her father, she offers, was a poor speller and added an extra “t” to her name. Germain and Margueritte fall in a kind of love. He’s the son she never had. She’s the mother we know he deserves.
With Margueritte, Germain’s galaxy of women expands to three. Sophie Guillemin plays Annette, his girlfriend, a strong, doting bus driver, and they have an easy, natural connection. You know exactly what she sees in this large, gentle man.
It’s what we see: how sexy his compassion is. His mother has hurt him. But Margueritte and Annette work to undo the damage.
Some of what occurs could have been predicted, but Jean Becker, who directed and co-adapted this fine little movie from Marie-Sabine Roger’s novel, doesn’t force anything. The scenes that pair Germain and Margueritte are certainly tutorial, but they’re enriched by the different but mutual need that flows between them.
Everyone here is a delight, even Maurier who, with the cigarettes, braying and clownish maquillage, might be enjoying herself too much.
