Call My Agent! The Movie

Synopsis: A follow-up to the French series Call My Agent! / Dix pour cent (“10%” a reference to the percentage agents take from clients). The former ASK talent agents are now at other agencies or into movie-making. Their new endeavors  run into comic complications.

French humor doesn’t necessarily translate to American or other English-speaking populations. And I don’t find European French- speakers gravitating to English language comedies’ self-deprecation or deadpan delivery. But Call My Agent! The Movie (Dix pour cent, le film) crosses borders. Who can’t find the humor in best laid plans going awry to comic effect? Or gossip sending people on wild goose chases?

Call My Agent picks up five years after the breakup of the ASK talent agency. The four season-spanning series centered on the ambitious agents and assistants competing for actor clients and promotions. Each episode featured famous French actors starring as fictionalized versions of themselves. Typically, the agents ran circles to keep them happy.

You can still follow the movie even if you haven’t watched the series. Hervé (Nicolas Maury), the former assistant of Gabriel (Grégory Montel), talks to the camera as he walks along the Seine, filling in the audience on where everyone has landed.

CMA features a movie within a movie – tres amusant. Hard-charging, brusque agent Andréa (Camille Cottin) is set to direct a movie, Le Fugitive, from her own script. Resourceful and passionate Noémie is riding high on the success of her series Les Collègues (The Colleagues). Andréa asks Noémie to be the producer because it’s expedient. Noémie presumes that Andréa cares about her opinions. She does not. However, Noémie is a good choice as a line producer, carefully tracking each expenditure. And she is determined to put out any fire. And there will be fires. Well, not literally. But I’m sure that she got fire insurance, just in case.

Cast and crew leave Paris and embark to the countryside, setting up at a hotel manor. Le Fugitive is an action movie about a woman who, after a brutal fight with her abusive husband, escapes deep into a forest. She survives there while a police officer tracks her down.

The fugitive is played by Laetitia Casta. The cop is Vincent Macaigne. I’m afraid that I wasn’t familiar with their work. Ms. Casta is a former model, judging by her acting I wasn’t surprised. To be fair, I should check out Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life which earned her a Cesar nomination. And her involvement with UNICEF as a Goodwill Ambassador is laudable. Mr. Macaigne has a long list of theater and film credits. His directorial debut was an adaptation of the Moliere play Dom Juan. Oh la la… in college I went with my class and professeur to a Montreal theater production of a Moliere play. I enjoyed it. Not necessarily the dialogue because my French was, how do you say: médiocre. But the atmosphere was good.

I wondered who would be cast as leads in The Fugitive if the movie was made in America. Probably Anne Hathaway, because she’s in everything and Matt Damon, same reason. But if French people were casting American actors? Angelina Jolie because she is jolie and Zach Galifianakis because he is scruffy. I know, it makes no sense unless you are French.

CMA includes two star cameos by American actors, both before the first day on set. Eva Longoria is tracked down in Paris by Andréa who hopes to get some good leads and advice from the American director and actor. Eva’s take on the screenplay? Move the action to Paris. Why? Because we all love Paris and want to see more of it onscreen. However, hiding out at a hotel or the Louvre wouldn’t be as challenging for our fugitive heroine as surviving in the wilds.

Second star cameo: George Clooney. He takes a restaurant meeting with Andrea. Since he is actually a French citizen now, maybe he is Georges Cluny on his French passport. Anyway! George is very glamorous and charismatic. Things are going well as Andrea explains her vision for the movie. Who should appear but Noêmie overdressed in a spangly dress to introduce herself as the producer of the film. In spectacular and hilarious fashion, she manages to insult George. The more she tries to correct herself, the more she digs a hole for herself and any chance for his involvement in the movie. Andréa can only sit-by, frozen in mortification. At least she got to enjoy a drink and some bread before la catastrophe.

Not surprisingly, the old ASK agents’ personal lives are floundering. Noémie is contemplating a custody battle with her ex, Colette (Ophelia Kolb) over time with their daughter, Flora (Élodie Batard Gaultier). Not one to temper her spats, she’s still mad at Gabriel (Gregory Montel) who represents her movie’s lead actor. Too bad because he will drive to the countryside to check on his client, the cop.

And Noémie is on the outs with partner Mathias (Thibault de Montalembert). Driven to outmaneuver everyone in the interest of his career, he inadvertently undermines Noémie. Btw, Laure Calamy is perfect as Noémie, claiming every scene she’s in. But, of course, she does this in everything she performs in.

Eager to make peace with Noémie, Gabriel represents a new client who is, as Andrea calls them, one of the stars of the film: Venus. Venus is a female wild boar. In the movie she will play an injured boar who is nursed back to health by the fugitive. On set, she is temperamental. Her trainer warns cast and crew: If anyone torments her, I will punch you in the face. I’m not one to advocate violence, but sometimes you have to stand up for your piggy. By the way, she is beautiful too. Venus, of course. With that name, are you surprised?

Will the former ASK colleagues end up behaving as well… friends, to save the film from going sideways. With help from up-and-coming agent, Camille (Fanny Sidney), Mathias’ daughter and the fugitive actress’ agent, Hervé, a bit actor in the production (he scares himself in the woods rehearsing his part as a hunter) and retired agent & chronicler of decades of tales about Parisian actors and performers, Arlette (Liliane Rovère).

If you’ve enjoyed the Call My Agent! series, the movie is la cerise sur le gateau (the cherry on top). If you haven’t seen the series? What are you waiting for? The agents and the fussy movie actors they represent will make you a Francophile.

P.S. When I speak French, I sound like a simpleton. I had a bit of schadenfreude when a couple of the French characters spoke English. Ha! Not sounding so smart anymore!

P.P.S. Directed by Émilie Noblet

P.P.P.S. Be sure to listen to the original French; you can easily click on the English subtitles.

Movie Loon Movie Review Shortcut:

Grade:  A-

Cut to the Chase: Oui, c’est super.

Humor Highlight:  Herve’s performance as Lysander in a theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Just as funny is his backstage convo with Noémie after the production—he’s having problems with his ex who is also in the play.