The Dinner Game / Le Dîner de cons

Gaumont anniversary screening & intro by Sue Harris on the golden age of Gaumont comedy

One of the biggest box office hits in French cinema history, Le Dîner de cons features a particularly Gallic blend of social satire and adultery. But it is also a trenchant social commentary on middle-class snobbery, fear of failure and humiliation. The wealthy editor Pierre Brochant (Thierry Lhermitte) and his friends have a weekly competition where each invites the most foolish man he can find for dinner. Tonight, Brochant is ecstatic, for he has found the ultimate idiot. But his guest, tax official Francois Pignon (Jacques Villeret), is a master in bringing on catastrophe.

“Writer-director Veber delivers a marvellously wrought plot… a classic example of a French farce”. Empire