Jean Dujardin becomes dangerously obsessed with a deerskin jacket in Quentin Dupieux’s slighter-than-slight comedy.
Prolific French genre filmmaker Quentin Dupieux is one of cinema’s quintessential ‘almost-but-not-quite’ talents. On paper, his films always sound lip-smacking: A killer tyre is on the loose!; A retro cop comedy!; A filmmaker has 48 hours to find a realistic groaning sound to secure funding for his movie!
Yet they rarely manage to transcend their logline. Deerskin is no different, a deadpan parable about extreme emotional detachment in which narcissistic and comically deranged drifter Georges (Jean Dujardin) falls under the spell of a tassled tan jacket and descends on to a murder spree so he can claim to be the owner of the world’s best jacket.
A local barmaid with po-faced filmmaking aspirations (Adèle Haenel) unknowingly assists with Georges’ criminal endeavours by editing amateur DV documentary footage of his crimes. Tonally, the film is a mess, as you don’t have the thrills of a slasher movie or the laughs of an all-out comedy.
The cast are clearly committed to Dupieux’s vision, but that vision seems to involve lots of groan-worthy plot twists that always come across as thin material being hammered out further, and never like the satisfying development of a credible idea.
Sure, there’s a few grotesque laffs to be had along the way, but when this 77-minute, purpose- free film ends, it leaves no lasting impression whatsoever.
Published 15 Jul 2021
Could this be the time that eccentric French director Quentin Dupieux strikes gold?
Nah. Some consequence-free larks in a film that’s almost aggressively shallow.
Everyone looks like they’re having fun, which is more than can be said for me.
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