L'Invitation (2016)
Directed by Michaël Cohen

Film Review

Having made the transition from actor to director with Ça commence par la fin (2010), Michaël Cohen returned to the director's seat for this wry take on the buddy movie, based on a popular graphic novel by Jim and Dominique Mermoux.  Although he appears in the film, Cohen gave the lead role to another comedy performer, Nicolas Bedos, who is far better suited for playing the Machiavellian smoothy who sets out to discover which members of his entourage can genuinely be considered friends.  L'Invitation is one of those low-budget, low-key comedies that is unlikely to make much of a splash but it provides an entertaining enough divertissement if you have an hour and a half at your disposal and you are in need of some light entertainment of a mildly caustic kind.

Male friendship is a subject that has been virtually mined to death in French cinema in recent years - Philippe Guillard's On voulait tout casser, Olivier Barroux's Entre amis and Richard Berry's Nos femmes all covered the same ground in 2015 - but Cohen's film takes a slightly different, more cynical tack and prompts us to ask what friendship really is and how do we know whether we have it or not.  L'Invitation is not a particularly profound or original film, but the humour feels fresher than in many recent films of this kind and there's plenty of amusement value to be had seeing Bedos milking the role for which he is best suited, the loathsome but inexplicably likeable louse.

Film Synopsis

Raphaël is woken up in the middle of the night by his best friend, Léo.  The latter's car has apparently just broken down outside Paris and Léo is phoning to ask if his buddy would help him out in his hour of need.  At this late hour, Raphaël's natural inclination is to stay in bed and let his annoying friend sort out his own problems, but a nudge from his wife is all it takes for him to come to Léo's aid.  The reluctant altruist is none too pleased to discover that not only has Léo's car not broken down, but his friend summoned him merely so that they could share a drink together - to celebrate the fact that Raphaël has proven himself to be a real friend.  A few weeks later, Léo decides to perform the same stunt with his other acquaintances, so gauge whether they really are his friends...