Cycling with Molière

Serge Tanneur was once a well known stage actor. He gave it all up, withdrew to the Île de Ré, and has spoken to nobody for three years. Gauthier, a former colleague who has become popular on television, comes to find him: he is staging Molière's Misanthrope and wants Serge in the lead. Serge refuses, but agrees to rehearse with him for a week. Philippe Le Guay directs. Fabrice Luchini plays Serge and Lambert Wilson plays Gauthier. The idea is the overlap between text and character. Alceste, the protagonist of the Misanthrope, detests people and falls out with everyone in the name of honesty; Serge is exactly that. As the two rehearse, the argument over who plays which part becomes a personal reckoning. The rehearsals are the centre and the text is read without cuts; Molière's seventeenth century verse is repeated in a house by the sea, in the kitchen, and on a bicycle. Luchini is an actor known in France for reciting classical text, and the part leans directly on that public identity. The Île de Ré landscape, the bicycle rides and the winter form the second layer. Who it is for: viewers who like French actors' films, theatre text and comedy built on dialogue. Who it is not for: without Molière some of the references disappear, and the female character is never properly attached to the story.