CLOSET, THE

Rating: 5

French filmmaker Francis Veber is one of the finest filmmakers working today. The reason, I suspect that his is not a household name here in the United States like, say, Truffaut or Goddard, is that Veber has chosen to use comedy to examine the human condition. Yet there is more about what it’s like to struggle, and not necessarily triumph, through daily life in any one of his films  than you can find in all the celluloid exposed by those other guys who wallow in existential angst or the morbid persistence of memory.
There is a reason why Veber has had more of his films remade by Hollywood, and ruined by the way, by Hollywood than any other French filmmaker. But fortunately, we don’t have to dwell on that now.
His latest film, THE CLOSET, is another comic gem. Only 82 minutes long, it doesn’t waste a moment of screen time (or your time, for that matter) as it clips along with the story of Pignon, a schlub of the first order who is defeated by life. Even making toast is an exercise in futility for him. He has a son and ex-wife who would despise him if they didn’t find him so boring and an accounting job at a condom factory that he’s about to lose because his co-workers don’t like him. They don’t dislike him, he’s just so, well boring.
Enter a new neighbor, who, for reasons that will become clear later, decides to save Pignon’s job and change his life forever. He starts a rumor that Pignon is gay but tells Pignon that he must not in any way change the way he has always acted. The factory can’t, of course, appear to discriminate against homosexuals, so he keeps his job. His co-workers, who ignored him or worse, suddenly find him to be an intriguing man of mystery. Even dangerous. And Pignon, well, the oddest thing happens. Suddenly, he IS more interesting, though the road to his new image is somewhat rocky.
Even more interesting, and here we see Veber’s inventive genius, is the subplot involving Gerard Depardieu in his finest comic performance to date. As a bigoted hulking blowhard, his life, too, is turned upside down when two co-workers, including the dreamy Thierry Lhermite, decide to use Pignon’s new identity as a gay man to teach Depardieu a lesson that ends up not only enlightening him, but changing him forever. He goes from barely civilized to a poster child for the sensitive male without missing a beat or a laugh.
Daniel Auteuil as Pignon is terrific, all bland sweetness and sad eyes until he takes charge of his life. Then the sweetness gets a little tough, though not mean-spirited, and the sad eyes light up.  Michele Laroque, in the first major female role Veber has ever written, is sleek and sly as the smartest person in the film.  
THE CLOSET works on two levels. It’s a riotous farce. It’s also an insightful look at how who we are gets lost in what other people take us to be, for good and for ill. On any level, you won’t find a smarter film this year.