Faking It
Reem Kherici’s comedy-ode to female pleasure may have its heart in the right place, if no other body part.
Good Vibes Only
Director: Reem Kherici • Writers: Reem Kherici, Gari Kikoïne, David Solal
Starring: Alexandra Lamy, François Cluzet, Reem Kherici, Mitty Hazanavicius
France • 1hr 30mins
Opens Hong Kong September 10 • IIB
Grade: C-
We all have one of those friends that gets up on their high horse every so often to spout off brilliantly considered generalisations like “Hollywood movies are terrible,” (despite my bitching, many are very good) or “I only watch real cinema by, like, the French,” or some shit like that. If you’re really unlucky they’ll go on to quote Nietzsche. The next time one of these boneheads says something like that may I suggest you direct them to Good Vibes Only (Pour le plaisir), a drop dead dull, forced sex farce as only the French can do them (drag on your smoke now) based on the creation of the global sensation of a sex gizmo that I have never heard of: the Womanizer. And which was invented by a German couple. With a clutch of stupid characters that suck at life who do stupid things because 1) it’s in the script and 2) they have to or the next “joke” won’t land this is the schlock the French don’t want you to see, lest it reveal to everyone in the world that they too can make shite films.
Woodenly directed like a Saturday afternoon TV movie by actor-director Reem Kherici, who made her debut in Michel Hazanavicius’s 2009 spy comedy OSS 117: Lost in Rio and clearly didn’t pick up many tips, and paced so clumsily the relatively brief 90 minutes feel like 900, Good Vibes Only has none.
There’s a George Michael song in here
Out in a sun-dappled, medieval French town probably surrounded by vineyards and cheesemakers – oh, Kherici has this film Frenching harder than any French film has ever Frenched before – a middle-aged woman called (hold on to your shorts for this one) Fanny (and because Juliette Binoche was busy, Alexandra Lamy, Santiago: The Camino Therapy) is seeing her sex therapist. Despite living in a beautiful Architectural Digest-ready villa and committed in a seemingly happy 20-year marriage to unemployed engineer Thomas (François Cluzet, still most recognised for 2011’s Intouchables), she’s never gotten her rocks off. Yup, that’s right. With a partner of 20 years, Fanny’s never had an orgasm. Her therapist Victoria (Kherici) ensures her it’s not that odd, but that now’s the time to ’fess up to Thomas and enlist his help in getting her to the little death. She has a horned-up sister, Pauline (Delphine Baril) who’s all for the side piece solution, a strangely uptight daughter that doesn’t fancy the idea of her parents having lives, Elsa (The Artist Oscar-winner Michel’s niece, Mitty Hazanavicius), and no clue how to function like a person in the real world. Naturally all this leads to a HIGH-larious series of shenanigans, some sexy, some not, as Thomas, once he’s past his shame and shock, dives into the world of female sexuality and nano-wiring to create a toy that will set Fanny’s fanny on fire (sorry, I couldn’t resist). Lamy deserves better than this.
Like the most reductive and derivative and lazy of Hollywood films (sacre bleu!) Good Vibes Only signals every plot beat and turning point well ahead of schedule, leaving no room for surprise, or for a second to wonder how Fanny got to where she is, why she (and millions of women in her position) feel bad for Thomas when she’s the one getting stiffed, or to consider a world that actively stifles female sexuality – in a country where Fifty Shades of Gray got a 12 rating. Kherici and her co-writers Gari Kikoïne (also an actor) and producer David Solal aren’t interested in the socio-sexual constructs that put Fanny where she is. No, they’re interested in Thomas picking up a music box he made for his wife on their first date (ding!), the Shark Tank-style invention show playing in the background (ding!), inspiration by bubble tea (ding!), the “humiliation” of buying books on sexuality and getting tagged for a price check (hardy-fuckin’-har), the awkwardness at a sex club, the comedy of errors that erupts at lunch with mom when Fanny can’t figure out why her phone volume is so low… you know this scene. It’s not particularly funny, and it just makes Fanny look a fool. It’s all very leaden and cliché, and lit to be so flat the visuals have have as much depth as the characters. Even by light romp standards Good Vibes lurches along like, taking its sweet time to the “Eureka!” moment we’ve been looking at our watches waiting for.