Grains de beauté: A messy game of hide-and-seek

Is it worth your time?

If you like movies that rely on people not opening their mouths to clear up simple misunderstandings, you will have a blast here. It is the kind of stuff that would fit right in a double bill with something like Virtuous Wives for a night of classic domestic chaos.

If you get easily annoyed by characters who make terrible life choices just to keep the plot moving, stay away. This is pure, unadulterated nonsense.

The Setup

So, our main guy is a total ladykiller. You know the type. He spends the whole time looking like he is waiting for someone to offer him a drink, even when he is already holding one.

He hits it off with this masked blonde at a ball. It is all very dramatic and whispery. Naturally, he follows her home because that is what happens in these movies. It is basically the 1930s equivalent of stalking, but presented as a romantic comedy beat. Yikes.

The Mess

The twist is obviously that the lady is married to his best buddy, the diplomat. The poor guy is so busy with state business he probably doesn't even know what year it is. Watching the bachelor try to navigate this is genuinely funny if you don't take it seriously.

There is this one shot of the hallway in the house where the lighting is so weirdly dim I thought my monitor had died. It gives the whole sequence this strange, claustrophobic feel. Like the house itself is trying to keep them apart.

Some Thoughts

• The dialogue is snappy, but it moves so fast you might miss the jokes if you look away for a second.
• The masks look kind of cheap, honestly.
• I felt like the diplomat friend was the only one who actually had a job to do.
• The pacing is frantic, which is fine, but sometimes it just felt like people were running in circles.

It definitely reminds me of the energy you see in Tonight at Twelve, where everything just spirals out of control because of one bad decision. It is not high art, and it doesn't try to be. It is just a movie about a guy who should have just gone home and slept it off.

The ending is a bit abrupt. It feels like the director just decided he was done and cut the film right there. Kind of a bold move, I guess? 🤷‍♂️