When The Muse Beckons-Molière (2007)- A Film Review

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

 

Moliere, starring Roman Duris, Fabrice Luchini, Laura Morante, Edward Baer, 2007  

 

No question looking for muses to bail you out of a creative crisis is a tough dollar. Just ask the Greeks who started the whole business. That “search” can pretty well sum up the struggle of the 17^th century French comedic playwright known as Moliere in this fictionalized French language film of the same name under review. For those in the know, those who have seen or read anything by the comedic master Moliere some of the scenes and themes in this film will seem vaguely familiar (vaguely here by this reviewer since it has been a long time since I have seen or read his plays), especially around the ideas of the cuckolded husband, the pretentious aspiring bourgeois, the perfidious aristocrat, and the errant wife.   

Here’s the “skinny” on this very easy to watch patchwork of themes from Moliere’s plays and fragments of his life. Moliere (played by dashing Romain Duris) like a lot of creative people was stuck in a rut, his rut being playing and writing farces and comedies for the masses out in the villages of France when what he wanted was to go into serious theater, wanted to write that one great tragedy that he knew he had in him after being on the road for a long while. But everything runs against him and his capacity to do such work, from the expectation of his royal patrons to his muse, the wife of a grand bourgeois, Elmire (played by Laura Morante).

The grand bourgeois, Jourdain (played by Fabrice Luchini), who had employed him on a secret mission to woo an aristocratic woman he is obsessed with had gotten more than he bargained for in two ways. First the aristocrat Dorante (played by Edward Baer), penniless and cunning, who was supposed to grease his path to his obsession had played him for a fool as he finds out through Moliere’s good offices. Secondly, Moliere under the name Tartuffe (from one of his plays), using cover as a tutor for his younger daughter had a whirlwind love affair with his wife, the fetching Elmire. She, the muse he must obey, tells him as they part that he must become the greatest comedic playwright of the day. He must follow what he was born to do, make people laugh.           

That parting was the price that Moliere had to pay to insure Elmire’s happiness once Jourdain found out Moliere and Elmire were having an affair. He, in revenge, threatened an unhappy marriage of his elder daughter to Dorante’s son if he did not break off the affair. All of this story was told in a flashback after Moliere found out that Elmire was dying some thirteen years later. Get this though, On her deathbed Elmire insisted that Moliere use her death, a tragic event, in a comedic effort to show just how great a playwright he was. He balked at first but you know what happens if you don’t follow your muse. Yeah, just ask the Greeks. Watch this very fine two hour period piece.