THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – TO SEE
The public rarely has the opportunity to see, simultaneously in theaters, a 1970s comedy that has become cult, The toy (1976), by Francis Veber, with Pierre Richard and Michel Bouquet, and its free adaptation forty-six years later, i.e. The New Toyby James Huth, with Jamel Debbouze and Daniel Auteuil.
Although wiser and less fierce than the original, The New Toy keeps the spectator in suspense, Jamel Debbouze ingeniously working the juggler side of his character, Sami, from a city of Blanc-Mesnil (Seine-Saint-Denis), without trying to mimic the lanky burlesque of the inimitable Pierre Richard.
In The toy, Pierre Richard played a broke journalist, who was “bought” by the son of a wealthy boss (Michel Bouquet), a horribly spoiled kid (Fabrice Greco) but terribly alone. Can you turn a human being into a freak, wrap him in a gift box and make him do anything, as long as you pay him handsomely? This is the disturbing scenario of Toywhich tends towards satire, where James Huth’s film, while taking up the main lines of the story, is more akin to a social comedy, reconciling the classes in struggle.
Play the difference game
The power of money shone brighter in Michel Bouquet’s diabolical eyes, while Daniel Auteuil’s gaze seemed a little extinguished, from playing a man devoid of feelings, “armored”, in every sense of the word. The New Toy is not devoid of charm, all the more reason to go see one or the other comedy, and play the game of differences.
The movie of James Huth goes for the performance of the tandem embodied by Jamel Debbouze and the young actor, Simon Faliu, who does not lack subtlety in the role of the false villain. Jamel Debbouze is the perfect chatterbox who could sell a cheese grater to a vegan. His character is very inventive: on the market, he sells a teapot with two spouts, to fill the mint tea glasses of older siblings with less effort. But the police embark their junk which is not up to standard and contains lead. He finds himself without money in his city, while his wife (Alice BelaÏdi) is eight months pregnant.
In his short-lived job as a security guard, Jamel Debbouze, tiny in his uniform, looks like Chaplin, but the camera does not linger long – or the editing is too fast – and the comic potential of the scene is finds it diminished. A few lines of dialogue, skilfully playing on words, bring it all together. Going into ecstasies over the kid’s state-of-the-art bed, which is weightless in the vast bedroom, Sami exclaims: “I had a bunk bed too! You have the super, and not the posed…”
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