Ridicule

A young engineer arrives at Versailles with a plan to drain the swamps of la Dombes and rid the peasants there of fever. He discovers that the route to the king does not run through hydraulics but through wit. At this court people rise on a good line and are destroyed by a bad one, and whoever becomes ridiculous never recovers. Patrice Leconte's insight is that the epigram is a weapon rather than an ornament. In one scene a man is finished off in public for stammering, and nobody stops laughing. Charles Berling plays the engineer, Jean Rochefort the old marquis who coaches him, and Fanny Ardant the most dangerous woman in the palace. The film opened the 1996 Cannes Film Festival, took four Césars including best film and best director, won the BAFTA for best film not in the English language and was nominated for the foreign language Oscar. Who it is for: lovers of sharp dialogue and period cruelty. Who it is not for: anyone who needs a character to like.