Priceless

This French fluff plays out to the rarefied background of upscale coastal resorts and has Audrey Tautou (below) as Irène, a likeable golddigger – the first of this film’s many fantasies – who falls for the charms of barman Jean, played by stand-up comic Gad Elmaleh, while on holiday with her pensionable fiancé. The twist is that Irène doesn’t know that Jean is just a plain old barman and so the poor lamb has to keep up with her warped desire to be wined, dined, clothed and housed by the super-rich…

Needless to say, Pierre Salvadori’s film doesn’t touch on the ickier aspects of the culture that it mines for gentle, screwball laughs – the sexual favours implicit in a gift of jewellery or a free meal from a wrinkly. Salvadori takes us on a easy ride through hotel suites, restaurants and parties at villas and doesn’t dare vilify anyone involved.

The biggest mystery, though, is what Jean sees in Irène to make him act like such a slavish no-hoper? She’s an unredeemable character and Salvadori shows us nothing to make us think otherwise.