Alibi.com

Philippe Lacheau got the idea in 2009 after a report on companies that really do manufacture alibis. As he tells it, such firms exist, and to stay legal they cannot operate in the workplace, deal with minors or supply fake prescriptions. He finds the business utterly immoral and politically incorrect, and says that is what makes it a brilliant comedy subject. This was the first film he directed alone: the two Babysitting pictures were co directed with Nicolas Benamou, both as found footage. Alibi.com was shot as straight fiction across 70 separate sets, and the first cut ran to 126 minutes before heavy trimming. The three at the centre, Lacheau, Julien Arruti and Tarek Boudali, come out of La Bande à Fifi, a comedy troupe formed on Le Grand Journal in 2005. Casting Nathalie Baye as Marlène was the producers’ idea; she is not thought of as a comic actor, which is the point. In France it sold 182,009 tickets on opening day and 1,124,383 in its first week, finishing the year ninth among the country’s best attended films. A good fit if you want to catch Greg’s 1980s habit worked into the set, the pinball machine and the Back to the Future dashboard. Not for anyone uneasy watching a business built on covering up affairs drive a comedy.