That Day

Typically eccentric fare from Ruiz, but at least the playfulness of this film helvétique‚ is unusually accessible. Zylberstein is the nervy heiress left alone in the remote family mansion and convinced that everything is about to change and it's the best day of her life. Piccoli is her tycoon father, of whom all the extended family seem to live in fear. Giraudeau is the escaped lunatic with homicidal tendencies who just happens to turn up on her doorstep. And Bideau is the local cop, determined to foil the expectations of any criminals by loafing in a café all day long. A cracked parody of the bourgeois policier à la Chabrol (and could those risibly inefficient detectives be a nod to L'Humanité?), the film delivers a plethora of subtle gags both verbal (can the Swiss state itself really be the culprit?) and visual (a magnificent shoot 'em up chase farcically mocking action sequence conventions). Delirious and delighful.