Feu Toupinel: A Dusty French Farce That Barely Keeps Up

Is this for you?

If you have a weird, specific soft spot for French theater-turned-cinema from the early talkie era, you might get a kick out of Feu Toupinel. Everyone else? Probably not. It is slow, it is noisy, and it feels like it is stuck in the mud of its own dialogue. Unless you find 1930s slapstick and endless inheritance squabbles charming, you are going to be checking your watch.

The whole thing feels like a stage play that someone forgot to take off the stage. The actors are constantly standing in semi-circles, projecting their voices like they are playing to the back row of a theater in Paris, not a camera lens. It is a bit exhausting to watch after twenty minutes.

Henri Vilbert is fine, I guess, but he spends half the movie looking like he is just trying to remember where he left his lunch. There is a lot of shuffling about and slamming of doors. It feels less like a movie and more like a fever dream at a stuffy family reunion.

Oddly Specific Notes:

• The lighting makes everyone look like they are constantly sweating, even when they are just sitting down.
• One of the side characters has this hat that is just… way too tall. I spent three minutes just looking at the hat.
• The sound quality dips so low during a kitchen scene I thought my speakers died.
• There is a moment where a vase breaks and nobody reacts for a full five seconds. It is genuinely uncomfortable.

Watching this made me think of Black Sheep, which at least had the decency to move along at a brisk pace. Here, the plot just sort of sits there, staring at you. You can tell the actors are working hard, but they are working hard to sell a script that ran out of ideas halfway through the second act. 🙄

I caught myself thinking about The Restless Three, wondering if those characters would have handled this mess with more dignity. They probably would have. In Feu Toupinel, dignity is the first thing that gets left at the door. It is just noise and paper-thin schemes.

Maybe if you are into film history, you find this interesting. It is a time capsule, sure. But it is a dusty one. Don't expect to be moved. Just expect to be confused about who owns what and why everyone is shouting about a dead guy named Toupinel.

It is definitely a relic. A loud, repetitive, slightly grumpy relic. Watch it if you are curious, but don't say I didn't warn you about the hats.