Moliare ss
Where Landmark’s Century Centre, Century 12 and CineArts 6
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
The film opens in 1658, when Moli�re (Romain Duris) returns to Paris from the provinces. When the king’s brother requests a performance, he immediately plans to impress his noble audience with an epic tragedy. “They deserve more than vulgar farces,” he tells his fellow actors. “Our company deserves more than vulgar farces.” Much to his disappointment, however, his patron insists they perform one of their renowned diversions.
Jourdain escorts Moli�re to his sprawling country estate, a locus of luxury and senseless frivolity, where he hastily dismisses his music teacher, who has been waiting for hours by the harpsichord, and spends only a few moments with his dancing and painting instructors. Within a matter of weeks, webs of desire and deception entangle everyone in the house. Jourdain tries to communicate with Celim�ne through Dorante (Edouard Baer), a pleasure-seeking sloth who tears up his letters and passes off Jourdain’s lavish gifts as his own. Elmire, who initially abhors Moli�re, gradually falls in love with his eloquence, and he with her beauty. The two start a passionate affair, though publicly Elmire continues to treat Moli�re as she would any priest. Jourdain’s daughter Henriette (Fanny Valette) carries on a secret courtship with a young man, knowing her father plans to wed her to a higher-ranking suitor. Purposely mimicking her father, she introduces him to the family as her singing tutor.
Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Tom Stoppard, and other comic playwrights have similarly made a higher art of comedy, but tragedy’s hegemony continues to thrive, particularly in film. That may be because popular comedies usually offer not depth or stimulation but escape. Moli�re isn’t perfect, but through homage to the playwright’s work and by its own example it reminds us that humor can make us laugh and think at the same time–even if it often doesn’t.
