PG, 110 minutes
3 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
In location shots that reveal and remind where events are taking place, a graceful castle with witch-hat spires appears in frame, set on a peaceful, wooded estate. A dream holiday location for many Francophiles to visit in the original, it is the place where an English businessman and his French wife first met before their many happy years of marriage. The impressive pile is Chateau du Bois Cornille, in Brittany.
That was long ago, and his beloved has died leaving Blake, a Londoner played by John Malkovich, in a gloomy state of mind that he cannot shake. No, he won’t keep on keeping on in London with friends, practising his French. He will get himself back over the Channel to where it all began.
Soon, through a series of comical misunderstandings, he discovers himself employed as the chateau butler. It is a role he is quite happy to play along with, but with French as fluent as his he could have sorted it out, had he wished.
It’s only for a trial period. What’s to lose, it’s what he wanted, even if the pokey attic room he’s been assigned isn’t what he had in mind for a nostalgic sojourn.
Happy to play along as butler, he could have sorted it had he wished
As the setup takes place, introducing us to the chatelaine, Nathalie Beauvillier (Fanny Ardant) and her talented cook Odile (Emilie Dequenne) and Mephisto, a very furry cat with a fixed, cross expression, Monsieur Blake begins to realise that the inhabitants of the castle have their problems too, despite the mood-elevating locale. The housekeeper and the groundsman, Manon and Magnier (played by Eugenie Anselin and Philippe Bas, respectively) have their issues, and the new butler cannot help noticing, so he dives in. The English butler gives his opinions freely and unreservedly in fluent French, what’s more.
If only the advice sounded more, errr …mellifluous, easy on the ear. Malkovich’s usual strangely thin and deliberate enunciation is not so much subsumed by his French accent, but heightened by it, despite the ease with which he speaks the language. The south of France was his home for many years, before he relocated his family to the US.
A butler as a Mr Fixit is a droll idea, with some endearing moments. Like the tumble Blake takes when climbing the wood pile looking for a better connection. Landing on the ground at the feet of the estate gamekeeper pointing his double-barrelled rifle at the stranger lumbering around in the dark. After an awkward start, Magnier and Blake bond across a chess board, the only guys in a household dominated by women.
Indeed, there is a female side to show. Magnier builds hibernation shelters for the estate’s hedgehogs, to protect them from marauding foxes, while Blake keeps his daughter’s soft toy close to his side at bedtime. The scenes where Magnier opens up to this strangely mannered but emotionally intelligent Englishman have charm.
A butler helping others find emotional connection has some endearing charm
Even though the writing is rather ordinary with occasional humour, the performances from Dequenne, who had such impact at Cannes in the Dardennes’ brothers film Rosetta, still shows her indomitable spirit. Ardant presents her usual elegant, vampish, smokey-voiced self.
During their chess matches, the two men trade friendly insults about their nationalities. The writing by screenwriters Gilles Legardinier and Christel Hennon would be funnier were it not so cliched. The stereotypical insults are the point, of course, but it is hard to imagine people still think in such crude, simplistic national stereotypes. Manon might observe admiringly that Mr Blake is ‘classy like a British’, but Magnier has other ideas about the insolent interloper. Making fun with ‘Mr Fake, Mr Cake…Mr Steak’ of the inconsistencies of the logic of English spelling and pronunciation. No argument. It’s indefensible.
This French-Luxembourg coproduction is the first feature directed by novelist Legardinier, the author of a raft of popular titles. Mr Blake At Your Service is based on a fiction from 2017, Complètement Cramé!, translating to ‘completely burnt out’. The inhabitants of Beauvillier estate are described on Legardinier’s site, where some 17 novels feature, as feeling their lives are over.
Mr Blake At Your Service was released in France before Christmas last year, leading into the season of feel-good silliness. With a Mr Fixit to salve bruised hearts and graft hopeful outlooks, this routine fare is a pretty good fit.
First published in print in the Canberra Times on 20 August 2024. Jane’s reviews are also published by Rotten Tomatoes