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THE CLOSET (stay out of it)
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“I’m an accountant, and consequently too boring to be of interest,” says Arthur Pewty (Michael Palin) of Monty Python, in a line funnier than any in THE CLOSET, a French sex farce about a repressed, involuntarily celibate divorced accountant working in a (tee hee) condom factory.
Francois Pignon (Daniel Auteuil) is lonely, miserable, and taken for so taken for granted he is about to be fired (made redundant, in the European subtitles), a fact he overhears. Like Dudley Moore’s Stanley Moon in BEDAZZLED, he is about to kill himself when fate takes a hand. His new neighbor proposes a novel strategy for saving Francois’s job - - leak that he is gay and management will be so terrified of retaliation they will keep him on.
Of course Francois’ newfound status not only saves his job but makes him a man of mystery. Predictable and non-hilarious complications ensue. The homophobic personnel man and rugby coach Felix Santini (Gerard Depardieu) has to make nice. His curvaceous superior (Michelle Laroque) now finds him intriguing. His sullen son now thinks he’s cool.
P C Pablum is not a character from Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, it’s a description of this bit of fluff. Nebbish-finds-virility-in-himself is a hoary cinematic tradition done better and funnier. Put this one back in its closet.