Love of life shines through

by RICHARD JONES

IF you're thinking Laurent Tirard's period movie Moliere is another romp similar to Shakespeare In Love you're probably on the right track.

It's certainly a lush romantic comedy in the same vein particularly when it focuses on the actor-playwright's mysterious and hitherto undocumented disappearance for several months in 1644.

We first meet a depressed Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known as Moliere (Romain Duris), in Paris during the 1650s. He's well aware that even though the farces he appears in as an actor are real hits in the provinces time is running out for him to make his name as a serious playwright.

And not only is time running out for the great tragedy to be penned, so, too, is time to find his one, true love.

Moliere's mind flashes back to a decade earlier when a message from an old friend recalls for him the time he was bailed out of debtor's prison.

Seeking sponsorship, Moliere makes a deal with a wealthy dolt Monsieur Jourdain (Fabrice Lucchini) - he's to instruct this fellow on the art of wooing a desirable woman who is not his wife. Moliere believes Jourdain was his benefactor in the gaol episode so he's beholden to him.

The wealthy trader has fallen in love with the Marquise Celimene (Ludivine Sagnier) and needs Moliere's assistance. So our theatrical impresario poses as a member of the clergy and bases himself at Jourdain's country manor.

As if putting his marriage with his beautiful wife (Laura Morante) is not jeopardy enough, Jourdain risks his entire fortune by using a go-between (Edouard Baer) to curry favour with Celimene. It falls to Moliere in a delicious take on two of his own satirical plays - Tartuffe and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme - to try to fix up the intricate web of mistaken identities and stolen hearts... and, of course, to rationalize his own infatuation with the dolt's gorgeous wife.

3 July 2008

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