Synopsis
The Valet (La Doublure, 2006) is a French farce from Francis Veber that you can watch online on iFILM. Billionaire Pierre Levasseur gets snapped by paparazzi beside his supermodel mistress, and to dodge a ruinous divorce he cooks up a ridiculous cover story.
The catch: his wife Christine controls the company's majority stake, so a split would wipe him out. A random passerby, parking valet François Pignon, happens to be in the photo next to model Elena. Pierre tells his wife that the affair is Pignon's, not his, then has to make Elena move in with the bewildered little man to sell the lie. Gad Elmaleh plays Pignon with sweet, baffled charm; Daniel Auteuil is the cynical tycoon; Kristin Scott Thomas and Alice Taglioni sharpen the scheming around them.
Veber spent two decades sending his perpetual everyman Pignon through plots like this, and the formula clicks: the straighter the rich men and lawyers play it, the funnier it gets. Light and brisk at 85 minutes, with no hidden depths, it's the kind of comedy for a night when you just want to laugh at other people's schemes. Stream The Valet (2006) online on iFILM.
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