Hors de prix (2006)

Director:

Pierre Salvadori

Writers:

Pierre Salvadori (scenario) and
Benoît Graffin (scenario) ...

Release Date:

13 December 2006 (Belgium)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

She only dated men with money...until she met a man with a heart

Plot:

Through a set of wacky circumstances, a young gold digger mistakenly woos a mild-mannered bartender thinking he's a wealthy suitor.

Plot Keywords:

Birthday | Bartender | Money | Gold Digger | Diamonds

Awards:

1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Audrey Tautou	...	Irène
Gad Elmaleh	...	Jean
Marie-Christine Adam	...	Madeleine
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Jacques
Jacques Spiesser	...	Gilles
Annelise Hesme	...	Agnès
Charlotte Vermeil	...	La dame au chihuahua
Claudine Baschet	...	La dame au dogue
Laurent Claret	...	Le responsable du bar à Biarritz
Jean de Coninck	...	Le client au cigare
Blandine Pélissier	...	La femme de chambre
Philippe Vendan-Borin	...	Le serveur au restaurant à Biarritz
Bernard Bourdeau	...	Le collègue de Jean à Biarritz
Didier Brice	...	François
Laurent Mouton	...	Le serveur au café François

Also Known As:

Priceless (International: English title) (UK) (USA)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for sexual content including nudity.; Rated R for some language. (special edition)

Runtime:

104 min | Turkey:92 min (TV version)

Country:

France

Language:

French | English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital

Certification:

Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Hong Kong:IIA | Singapore:NC-16 | Finland:K-3 | Portugal:M/12 | Ireland:12A | Argentina:13 | Sweden:7 | USA:PG-13 | South Korea:15 | USA:R (special edition) | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

France

Company:

France 2 Cinéma

Trivia:

During a French TV Show ,the actress and singer Marie Laforet, announced her participation to the film, though finally she did not appear on the movie

Quotes:

Irène: But charm is more valuable than beauty. You can resist beauty, but you can't resist charm.

Soundtrack:

Cheaper to Keep Her

Grand Prix

Last night my girlfriend dragged me to a chick flick. Fortunately for me, my girl has pretty good taste and it happened to be a French chick flick. Priceless doesn't redefine the genre, but it does prove most European mainstream films have a lot more going for them than most mainstream American films.

"Love conquers all" is certainly not an original theme, yet clichéd or not, this telling feels both fresh and intelligent. Whereas American chick flicks portray women as lonely, hopeless and dying to meet Mr. Right, Priceless establishes its female lead as anything but. Audrey Tautou's Irène is an icy predator, a materialistic bitch with no redeeming qualities other than a great body every designer dress she dons showcases. Here the male lead Jean (Gad Elmaleh) is the hapless and hopeless romantic, who is desperate to melt the ice queen's heart. While this setup might call to mind the Coen Brother's Intolerable Cruelty, it doesn't suffer from IC's achilles heel: aping the films it was inspired by. The Coen's film is an all too obvious tribute to Howard Hawk's screwball romantic comedies, so much so, their respect for Hawk's becomes the very crutch that renders IC lame. Priceless also pays respect to classic French comedies (ie. the films of Louis de Funès and Jacques Tati) but, unlike IC, it never gets bogged down by its influences. Priceless manages to make the old seem new and it is buoyed by its charm, its nuanced writing and the performances of the two leads.

Gad Elmaleh who plays the naïve Jean, not only nails every bit of physical comedy assigned to him, but he also provides Priceless with its heart. You can't help but feel his pain as you see in his eyes the heartache and humiliation inflicted upon him by Tautou's Irène. Throughout the film Elmaleh effortlessly expresses a wide range of emotions and even though the comedy is, at times, broad it never feels contrived and always feels natural.

I'm not going to go over the top and call this a masterpiece, but if you've got to sacrifice some blood and sit through a chick flick after subjecting your better half to a Herzog marathon (as I recently did), then Priceless is the perfect choice.