Au Petit Marguery


Director: Laurent Benegui.

Starring: Stephane Audran, Michel Aumont, ALain Beigel, Marie Bunel, Thomas Chabrol, Vincent Colombe, Agnes Obadia.

This movie is currently being talked of as the French Big Night. Big Night, the allegory for film making and artistic endeavours in general, is a far superior movie. For its ability to make one's mouth water, Eat, Drink, Man, Woman was also a more pleasurable food movie. Au Petit Marguery is an enjoyable movie, just not in the league of its food predecessors.

Hippolyte and his wife, Josephine, are closing their restaurant after twenty-five years in business. To celebrate, on their closing night, they are having a final party. The movie is the unfolding of this party, intermixed with flashbacks for the various attendees.

One of the major drawbacks of this movie is the number of characters the viewer is expected to keep track of. For a lot of the characters, their relationship to the owners is never completely clear. As a contrast to this, the brother and sister twosome constantly refer to each other as "my brother" or "my sister", painfully spelling out their relationship. As long as I was happy to let it flow over me and not try to remember who was who or who was married to whom, the movie was quite pleasant. Once my brain raised the question, "Now, who is that again?", I was then down that interminable path "Now is that the son? No, he's the one with the glasses. Is that Julien? Is that the one the mother likes? Does the mother like Julien?"

As well as the overhead of keeping track of all these people, we never really get to know anyone very well. The little snippets of people here and there are mildly interesting but vaguely dissatisfying.

And why are they throwing a party for their son's friends rather than their own friends? The implication seems to be that these are their friends also but it seems a strange mix with no-one from their generation present, not even the wife's gossipping partner. Perhaps this is just another example of movie makers' fascination with youth.

The food looks quite good although, as mentioned before, not quite so appetising as in Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. This may be due partially to the fact that I was much hungrier when I saw Eat, Drink, Man, Woman but also because not enough attention is shown to the food. Just as we are presented with too many people and not enough time spent on each, so too for the food. The camera moves too quickly over the dishes, perhaps conveying a feeling of plenty but I was still trying to take in a dish when another was presented. I was also left slightly with the question "Who is doing the cooking?" During the party, the restaurant is still open for regular business and yet Hippolyte seems to spend most of his time out of the kitchen.

Having said all that, pieces of the film are quite enjoyable. While not the comedy that it is billed as, moments are quite amusing and one or two scenes very touching. The performances are convincing to the extent that we get to know any of the characters. And, being a French film, there are some very beautiful people, women and men, to watch. (Of course, being a French film, there are plain men but no plain women.)

This is less a food movie and more an ensemble cast set in a restaurant. As such, Au Petit Marguery is a pleasant film with mildly diverting characters, lacking the soul of Big Night and missing the sumptuousness of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.

Rating: CR

© Nikki Lesley 1997