Synopsis: When a man decides to play the role of twins in order to romance another set of twins, life becomes much more complicated than he wants or needs in this interesting farce by Yves Robert, adapted from the much blacker comedy by Donald Westlake, -Two Much. Matthias Duval (Pierre Richard) is a humble greeting-card vendor when he meets twin American heiresses and decides to seduce each of them since he cannot tell them apart anyway and is attracted to both sisters. His originally innocent ploy eventually makes a bigamist out of him and nearly does him in since he has to bed-hop between the two women, without remembering who is whom.
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Le jumeau 7.0

From Yves Robert, the director of ‘Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire’, comes this amusing tale of a gambler who decides that he wants to seduce twin sisters and goes about it by pretending to be twins himself. Pierre Richard returns for his fourth and final feature with Robert as the titular twin.

Richard is actually quite good at playing both parts and showing us all the hassles he goes through to make it all happen, the effort and the toll it can take. There’s this one scene that comes to mind where he wakes up next to one sister and then has to get up and go to the other sister’s room and pretend that had gotten up early. His skill for timing every move and maneuvering through the elaborate set is noteworthy; not everyone would have pulled it off.

Like many French comedies, it has a dramatic side even though it’s all played for laughs. The balance is just right here, and the picture doesn’t fall into the obvious farce traps that one might expect with this type of plot (for instance, I’ve seen this done really badly many times over on ‘Three’s Company’). ‘Le jumeau’ is hardly clever, but I’m pleased to report that it’s not moronic or too clichéd either; this is a piece that could easily have gone wrong.

I loved that, while Richard’s character, Duval, is trying to scam the twins, one gets the sense that he might be getting scammed as well. This uncertainty gives the film a less unilateral dimension that I thought added quite a lot to the overall vibe: if one felt that Duval was strictly taking advantage of the women, we would have had a hard time sympathizing with him. As well, by seemingly making him the hapless victim of some unknown ploy, there is an air of mystery and/or danger that pairs up with the comedy quite well.

An element that I find doesn’t always work but was remarkably efficient in ‘Le jumeau’ is that Duval’s inner monologues are frequently voiced-over for us by Pierre Richard, providing us with a better sense of what his thinking process is. This gives us a lot more substance than we would otherwise have gotten; without it, the picture would have fallen in with many of its peers – tediously déjà vu and unexceptional.

That’s not to say that the film is a masterpiece. Hardly. But it’s an enjoyable romp that manages to toss in enough skill and freshness to keep things pleasant, if not wholly appealing; ‘Le jumeau’ is distinctive enough that it stands out from look-alike productions. If one were exploring Pierre Richard’s oeuvre, one might be pleased with the end result. And for anyone looking for a sleepy Sunday morning film or a rainy day time-killer, ‘Le jumeau’ could do the trick.

Nota bene: The audio on the DVD was so subpar that, even by increasing the volume, I missed much of the dialogue – and, thus, probably a lot of the the humour. Complicating things is that the two women playing the twin sisters had pretty thick English accents, thereby compounding the problem. It’s conceivable that I might have enjoyed ‘Le jumeau’ more if not for this – or if, at least, there had been subtitles. If ever I come up with a better copy of the picture and it improves my appreciation of it, I’ll revisit my rating.