In Paris, the forty-three year-old Luis "Pipou" Costa (Alain Chabat) is a immature bachelor and successful creator of perfumes and does not have any intention to get married. However, his oppressive family that is ruled by six women - his mother Geneviève Costa (Bernadette Lafont) and his sisters Catherine (Véronique Barrault), Axelle (Marie-Armelle Deguy), Carole (Katia Lewkowicz), Maxine (Louise Monot)and Marie (Luce Mouchel) decide that Luis shall get married and they try to find a wife for him among their friends.When Luis is having lunch with his best friend Pierre-Yves (Grégoire Oestermann), he learns that his regular waitress is depressed and not working because her fiancé left her a couple of days before their wedding. Luis plots a scheme to hire a woman to pose as his fiancée and to leave him on the day of their marriage in order that his family does not bother him anymore. He hires Pierre's sister Emmanuelle "Emma" (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who is trying to adopt a child from Brazil, to be his bride-to-be and to leave him at the altar on the day of their wedding. However his plan fails since his family loves Emma and when she does not show up to marry him, his mother has to go to the hospital and his sisters blame him. Now Luis hires Emma again to act like a bitch to make his family hate her. Meanwhile Luis falls in love with Emma and when his plan works and Emma leaves him, he misses her. Would it be too late for him to declare his love for Emma? "Prête-moi ta main" is a delightful romantic comedy with an entertaining story, funny situations and very well acted. The charming, elegant and beautiful Charlotte Gainsbourg is one of my favorite actresses and I loved to see her in a light movie after several Lars von Triers features. The characters are interesting and we can see the stingy guy, the family that likes to snoop and interfere in the life of the members and an independent woman that is the opposite of the other women. In the end, "Prête-moi ta main" is a French comedy that will make your day (or night) better. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "A Noiva Perfeita" ("The Perfect Bride")

Forty-Year-Old Virgin meets Pretty Woman: that's the pitch, but it's the initial premise that'ss hard to get by. I never saw why he had to do all this.This comes with no festival laurels, only some good box office (thanks to heavy promotion?) in France and average reviews there. Premise (from which we are not allowed a moment's respite): "Life is good for Luis (Alain Chabat). He's happily single, enjoys his job and is loved, cherished and pampered by his mother and five sisters. But one day, they decide it's time for him to marry. Luis hurriedly hatches a plan…He will find the perfect woman who will charm them. . ., and disappear on the day of the wedding. After that nobody will dare mention the word marriage to him again" (-- from the press kit).The trouble with this comedy is that everything about it seems staged, beginning with the original family (which includes some male members omitted from the description above) and its elaborate dining room meetings and heavy bourgeois trappings. There never was a family like this outside of a French comedy – outside of this French comedy. The rapid fire introduction of family members – a shot for each with less than a sound bite – is typical of one of the film's main methods: it throws excessive amounts of unnecessary information at you in the hopes that it will keep your attention – and keep you from thinking how completely shallow all this contrivance is.Luis is a perfume designer, and this introduces another elaborate set of contrived scenes and characters.Enter Charlotte Gainsbourg. She is the sister (whom strangely Luis did not previously know) of Luis' best friend, and after exhaustive interviews of unsuccessful candidates for the fake bride, she's left.Gainsbourg is a trouper, and a veteran of French film comedy. Those by her husband Yvan Atal were, however, much more nuanced and interesting than this Lupiece of fluff. And Gainsbourg's gamine look is beginning to show some signs of wear (too much dieting, too many cigarettes?). She still has the charm, but maybe she might try taking it into more serious, less frenetic roles.After the wedding, which is lame, and no doubt borrowed from other film weddings rather than any known reality, Luis's mother collapses and is taken to the hospital – another of many fake gestures to liven things up.And guess what happens? Oh, you'll never. Gaionsbourg and Chabat actually fall for each other. Wow. And then things get cute, and it's all over.What a lot of work all this was to put together, and what a bore it is to watch! There are a great many better French comedies out there. Even among the formulaic ones we currently have The Valet/La doublure (Francis Veber), which is far more economical and amusing. Among the more interesting ones is the currently playing in New York Avenue Montaigne/Fauteuils d'orchestre, which was at the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center last year and belatedly got picked up. Or there is Laurent Tirard's (who worked on this) Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinités--which has the likes of Clovis Cornillac to liven it up.Another related comedy: Tanguy, about a man child who won't leave home. His hanging on with his wealthy parents is closer to contemporary European realities than Luis and his bossy extended family. He doesn't have to get married (though he does); he just has to move out of the house. The whole process is played for laughs, but it begins with a real situation. This doesn't. Mistake.

Alain Chabat is a fine actor, writer and director but maybe a trifle misguided to take an 'idea' credit for a story that probably had them rolling in the aisles when Aristophanes was still learning that it's 'i' before 'e' except after 'c'. But, like I said, Chabat is a fine actor and he can do charm when he needs to. I'm also gradually overcoming an aversion to Charlotte Gainsbourg who also turns in an accomplished performance. If you absolutely insist on knowing, the 'plot' is the one about the guy well into his forties and more than content to be single. This doesn't sit well with his mother and five sisters and to get them off his back he makes an 'arrangement' with the sister of a colleague to pose - for fifteen thousand euros -as his new girlfriend, allow the romance to come to fruition with a wedding and then jilt him, thus getting him off the hook. Naturally they wind up together but along the way there's some sub-Benedek and Beatrice duelling and all things considered it's a pretty painless ninety minutes and performing so well at the French box office that a sequel may not be out of the question.

Alain Chabat claims this movie as his original idea but the theme of reluctant lovers who finally get it together is as old, if not older, than Shakespeare.Chabat is a "vieux garcon", happily single and not wanting any member of the opposite sex to disturb his life. He has a problem, 5 sisters and a matriarchal mum - the G7 - who decide he should be married. Enter the delightful, charming Charlotte Gainsbourg and what should be a simple plan. Charlotte has to pose as Chabat's girlfriend and then simply not turn up on the day of the wedding. No more talk of marriage from the G7. Of course the best laid plans have a habit of spiralling out of control.There are very strong supporting roles from Lafont as the mother and Osterman as the tight-fisted brother of Gainsbourg.There are some fantastic scenes as first Charlotte has to charm, then revolt the family. French farce with an English.