Le Chéri de sa concierge: A bit of old-school French noise

Is it worth the watch?

If you have a soft spot for 1930s French slapstick where people run in and out of rooms while waving their arms, you’ll probably have a decent time. If you need a plot that actually makes sense or characters who don’t screech at each other, skip it.

It’s light, it’s loud, and it’s very much a product of its time. Fernandel is doing his thing—that rubbery face of his is always fun to watch, even when the script is running on fumes. 🎭

The vibe

The whole thing feels like a stage play that someone accidentally filmed. You can almost smell the dust on the floorboards.

There is this one moment with the concierge that goes on for way too long. I actually looked at my phone for a second, and when I looked back, they were still arguing about the exact same thing. It felt less like a scene and more like a fever dream about neighborhood politics.

Random thoughts

• The pacing is frantic, which is fine, but it makes it hard to care about anyone's actual problems.
• I kept thinking about Isn't Life Terrible? because both films share that same desperate energy to make the audience laugh through sheer repetition.
• The background extras in the street scenes have this oddly blank look, like they were told to stand there and think about their grocery lists until the cameras stopped rolling.
• The dialogue is sharp, but sometimes it sounds like everyone is competing for who can talk the fastest.

Final impressions

It is not going to change your life. It won't even change your afternoon.

But there’s a certain charm to how much effort they put into such a silly premise. It reminds me a bit of the frantic energy in An Auto Nut, where the chaos is the whole point of the exercise. You don't watch this for the story. You watch it to see how many doors Fernandel can slam before the movie ends.

Honestly? I enjoyed it more than I probably should have. Maybe I just needed the noise. 🥖