Jean-Pierre Darroussin Movies

A couple of ne'er-do-wells fight the global economic setbacks of the early 21st century with a unique brand of crime - and establish themselves as modern-day Robin Hoods - in this zany caper comedy from France. After 17 years spent working in one of Paris's most elite banks, Julien (Gerard Lanvin) believes he's only a few days from fulfilling his dream of leaving this dead-end job and opening a local bistro with his pal, the brasserie chef Etienne (Jean-Pierre Daroussin). Then both men's bids for a bank loan are rejected, and Julien's billionaire boss adamantly refuses to help them out. Seething with a desire for revenge, Julien takes advantage of his job by picking up tips on the stock market gleaned during bank luncheons, and using it to his and Etienne's financial advantage. Inevitably, Julien's neighbors get wind of the scheme and request that he invest their money, which gets Julien in way over his head - especially when the local off-track betting group takes advantage of the situation by changing their game from horsetrack betting to gambling on the stock market. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

A man seems poised to get away with murder even as he tries to clear an innocent man in this drama from director Edouard Niermans. Grégoire Duval (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) is a druggist who runs a successful shop in the early 1960's. Duval is a well-respected citizen, but he has a dark side, and one night, when he propositions a young woman who rejects him, he flies into a rage and kills her. There are no witnesses to the crime and Duval tells no one about what happened. When the woman's body is found, Duval is not suspected, and instead Khader (Lahcen Razogir), the woman's Algerian boyfriend, is arrested and charged with the crime. With the Algerian war a fresh and unpleasant memory in the minds of most French citizens, Khader seems like a likely culprit, and circumstantial evidence is quickly stacked against him. Duval's conscience begins to get the better of him, and he begins visiting the courtroom during the trial, pointing out the flaws in the prosecutors' case. However, Duval realizes that his neighbors are so eager to believe that Khader is a murderer that there may be no saving him. Le Septieme Jure (aka Jury Duty) received its North American premiere at the 2008 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Director Martin Valente weaves this elaborate tale of intersecting lives that originally screened at the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival. Unemployed Sara is down in the dumps, but her best friend Isa is determined to liven things up by taking her downsized friend on a weekend holiday in Portugal. Meanwhile, disgruntled filmmaker Paul packs his bags for Lisbon in order to support his latest cinematic misstep as pharmacist Yves contends with a troublesome neighborhood dog, touring musician Nina makes a pit stop to visit her seven year old son, tone def police captain Vince continues to strum his guitar, and youthful grandmother Hélène is forced to face reality after being asked to babysit her grandson Ross. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Two men find themselves sharing a lifetime of experiences and observations over the course of a summer in this low-key comedy-drama from France. After the death of his mother, an artist (Daniel Auteuil) well known for his nature studies inherits his family's vacation house in the country. The artist notices that the house's once-impressive vegetable garden has fallen into neglect, and he hires a local gardener to put it back into shape. To his great surprise, the gardener (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) turns out to be an old friend from his school days, and as the gardener gets to work, he and the artist talk about where their lives have gone since they last saw one another. Over the next several months, the gardener and the painter chat about life, love, work, family, vegetables and anything else that crosses their minds as they casually pass along their life's stories and what they learned along the way under the warmth of the summer sun. Dialogue Avec Mon Jardinier (aka Conversations With My Gardener) was adapted from the memoirs of artist Henri Cueco. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

French acting mainstay Jean-Pierre Darroussin stars and makes his directorial debut with this offbeat French drama. For Charles (Darroussin), life has become synonymous with bourgeois imprisonment. Married to a snotty art maven-cum-socialite on the ritzy Right Bank, he longs to escape from the social shackles that confine him. In a moment of complete desperation, Charles drops out and moves into a humble apartment situated in a multi-ethnic neighborhood. Ostensibly, he's moved there to do some writing, and virtually seals himself off from the outside world altogether, but the neighbors make that a veritable impossibility - especially after a gorilla named Tomas (Ivan Franek) beats his unfaithful wife within an inch of brain damage and thus loses control of his sexy teenage daughter Sabrina (Amandine Janin). Lo and behold, she winds up in the custody of Charles, along with a seamstress, Isabelle (Valerie Stroh) who has taken a job as a nanny/guardian for her. This film sports an unusual denouement; after Charles falls ill in the story, the motion picture lapses into "parallel realities," thus presenting multiple alternate endings concurrently. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide

Cesar award-winning actor Jean-Pierre Darroussin makes his feature directorial debut with this satirical tale about a well-to-do Parisian lawyer who takes flight from the middle class. Charles Benesteau (Darroussin) is a forty seven year old lawyer who has grown tired of bourgeois hypocrisy. The husband of a terminally pretentious art maven, Charles leaves behind his marriage and comfortable house for a modest apartment on a multi-ethnic, working class neighborhood. Though at first his new, low-rent lifestyle brings Charles a level of happiness never achieved in his posh old neighborhood, things quickly turn chaotic when his feuding neighbors stick him with their troubled teenage daughter as they wage World War 3 behind paper-thin walls. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A handful of men who are standing in the shady side of 50 depend on one another to sort out the romantic and personal complications facing them in this comedy from France. Manu (Jean-Pierre Darroussin), Antoine (Bernard Campan), Alex (Marc Lavoine), and Jeff (Gérard Darmon) are four close friends who've known each other for years, and lately seem to be spending a lot of time helping one another with women and midlife crises. Manu, who runs a delicatessen, is single, with two ex-wives and three grown children to his credit; lately, he's been dating Juliette (Florence Thomassin), who is young and beautiful, but not especially bright. Antoine is a school teacher who, for the past 15 years, has been married to Lili (Fabienne Babe); however, when he learns that she had a brief fling with another man, he's not certain he'll ever be able to forgive her. Magazine publisher Alex constantly pledges his fidelity to his wife, Nanou (Catherine Wilkening), when in fact he's been chronically unfaithful for years, though Nanou (to her frustration) has been unable to prove it. And Jeff, Alex's business partner, has been divorced from his first wife, Françoise (Ludmila Mikael), for over a decade; lately, he's been keeping company with Elsa (Zoé Félix), a lovely and loving woman who happens to be half his age. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A throwback detective attempts to unravel the mystery behind the disappearance of a young Parisian student named Rachel in this noirish mystery from director Guillaume Nicloux. His life a smoky and meaningless haze of women and seedy investigations, private eye François Maneri (Thierry Lhermitte) agrees to take the case of a missing student in an investigation that grows increasingly complex. First speaking to Rachel's family and friends, François soon discovers a dark and complicated past that few of those who were close to Rachel knew about. As François moves ever closer to discovering the truth behind Rachel's disappearance, facts become blurred and the truth a complex maze of sordid details that threatens to envelop the detective in the same darkness that swallowed Rachel. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A strange phone call sets in motion a series of traumatic events in writer/director Jeanne Labrune's self-described "fantasy," C'est le Bouquet! Catherine (Sandrine Kiberlain of Alias Betty) and Raphaël (Jean-Pierre Darroussin of The Town Is Quiet) seem a reasonably happy middle-class Parisian couple until early one morning, when an old acquaintance, Emmanuel Kirsch (co-writer and one-time Godard collaborator Richard Debuisne) calls Catherine out of the blue and asks how much she got for a piece of real estate she sold 15 years earlier. This lapse of etiquette leads to an argument between Catherine and Raphaël that causes Raphaël to question the way he lives his life. That day, he goes to work and insults his pugnacious, blindly acquisitive stock-trader boss, Stéphane (Mathieu Amalric), who promptly fires him. Raphaël goes out and discusses his self-loathing with a sympathetic and amorous co-worker, Edith (Dominique Blanc). Meanwhile, Emmanuel, by way of apology, sends a bouquet to Catherine, which is misinterpreted by the couple's nosy neighbors, Antoine (Maurice Bénichou) and Alice (Hélène Lapiower), as a romantic gesture. They decide to steal Emmanuel's card so that Raphaël won't know who the flowers are from. Naturally, this only complicates the situation further. When Catherine and Raphaël arrange to meet at a local Chinese restaurant, Catherine can't find the place, and asks Robert (Jean-Claude Brialy) for directions, which leads to an argument when Robert, a playwright who also happens to be Emmanuel's neighbor, makes what Catherine thinks is a racially insensitive comment. At the restaurant, Raphaël tells Catherine about the job, and the couple contemplate what it will be like to be poor. Blanc was nominated for a César for Best Supporting Actress. C'est le Bouquet! was shown at Lincoln Center in New York as part of their 2003 Rendez-Vous with French Cinema. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide

A screwball comedy that covers one week in the lives of a group of Parisians, Ca Ira Mieux Demain relies on chance encounters between its characters to propel its plot. Included amongst the characters are two girls, Annie (Sophie Guillemin) and Marie (Isabelle Carre); Marie's mother Elisabeth (Jeanne Balibar); the bourgeois and anal-retentive Sophie (Nathalie Baye) and her husband Xavier (Jean-Pierre Darroussin); and the put-upon Franck (Didier Bezace), who is constantly being harangued by his wife, Celine (Nathalie Besancon), about his unhealthy eating habits. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide