Menage (Evening Dress)

I don't know what to make of the characters in this film. Gerard Depardieu is a gay house robber Bob (most reviews and such say he is bisexual but I think he can only get off with a woman if he is thinking about a man or if a man is watching). He hears a couple, Monique and Antoine, arguing (Miou Miou, Michel Blanc). She is tired of being poor, so Bob invites them into robbing homes with him. Monique takes to this readily, finding it exciting and dangerous. Antoine is nervous and is scared of the passes Bob is making to him.


Bob ends up seducing Antoine, despite Antoine claiming he is not gay nor wanting to be turned gay. Once Bob beds him, Antoine no longer is aroused by Monique. It becomes that they are a threesome until Bob manipulates Monique out of the picture. Antoine starts behaving like a typical shrewish housewife until Bob takes him out dancing (with Antoine dressed like a woman).

Then it switches to the three as streetwalkers (all dressed as women) and talking about some child named Pascal who is their godson or something. What was that all about?

This movie doesn't seem to like women--men slap them to show dominance, and while Monique is not very likeable, she is only depicted through Bob's eyes as a way to get to Antoine. First she is a sex object, then an obstacle, then she is a put into servitude until she is fed up and leaves (but comes back to walk the streets with them but no indication of why, it's like a middle part was cut out of the story). Bob is meant to be so in love with Antoine but his machinations are mean and brutal; at times he acts loving and coy, but turns on a dime to be a manipulative, ranting abuser. Antoine especially is a confusing character, I would call him bicurious and not necessarily gay or a transvestite. What does he get out of this?

What I thought would be a crime comedy was a sort of sex farce, but not a very nice one or well put together, not treating any of the characters with any sense of truism. The comedy for the most part is loud and uninteresting; the sex, for a French film, is pretty dull and is mostly described in flowery terms rather than played out physically. I think it needed to be more daring. The crime part is only at the beginning as a premise for the trio to meet but peters out.

Michel Blanc won a Cannes award for this portrayal (the film is from the 80s) and while I think he did a good job, the characters and story are not well writteen at all. The English version of the title is "Evening Dress" and I don't get the connection of that either.