Denis Podalydès Movies

Writer/director Xavier Durringer teams up with co-screenwriter Patrick Rotman to chart French President Nicolas Sarkozy's (Denis Podalydes) rise to power, and the gradual deterioration of his marriage to his second wife, Cécilia (Florence Pernel). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The title represents an in-joke, and a word of explanation may help: early 21st century French president Nicolas Sarkozy originally hailed from the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, notorious for the allegedly pompous, haughty attitudes among its residents. The vernacular of the title translates, roughly, as "Neuilly yo mama!," or a light slap in the face to such people. As directed by Gabriel Julien Laferrière, this offbeat, occasionally sarcastic coming-of-age comedy from France predominantly unfolds in Neuilly. Raven-haired, 14-year-old Arab boy Sami Benboudaoud (Samy Seghir) enjoys growing up in the rough-natured but familiar town of Chalon-sur-Saône, where he spends his time palling around with several buddies. But when his mother (Farida Khelfa) takes a job on a cruise ship, Sami gets yanked out of the community against his will and dropped into the custody of his financially comfy aunt and uncle, who live in Neuilly. Sami instantly becomes a fish out of water, and must face a number of formidable nemeses, including his obnoxious cousin, Charles (Jeremy Denisty) whose chief ambition is to become one of Sarkozy's successors, and a bigoted WASP-y school that perceives all Arabs as "scum," mirroring a notoriously racist, well-publicized remark from Sarkozy himself. Sami also falls hard for his cute, blonde, super-intellectual classmate Marie (Josephine Japy), who doesn't exactly warm to the idea of dating someone with Sami's ethnic background. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

A troubled and emotionally fragile woman finds herself at the center of a firestorm, in this gut-wrenching psychological drama from France. Screen veteran Isabelle Adjani (Les Soeurs Brontë, Ishtar) stars as Sonia Bergerac, an instructor at a school for "difficult" children. As if that role were not demanding enough, Sonia's husband suddenly and inexplicably leaves her, and she encounters considerable problems adjusting to her work environment. She thus finds herself careening toward a nervous breakdown, with seemingly no way to stop. Compounding matters is Sonia's decision to buck the principal's rule of no skirts for female teachers, a policy she resents. Sonia's world explodes into chaos one afternoon when she discovers a gun in one of her students' bags. Acting spontaneously and indignantly, she seizes it and fires an accidental shot, wounding one pupil's leg. The incident gets misread and draws untoward attention, and before long parents, politicians, law officers and the media surround the school and turn an unfortunate incident into a full-blown hostage crisis that may well push Sonia over the edge of sanity. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

To the French, Michel "Coluche" Colucci (1944-86) was not merely a household name but a veritable institution. A stocky, goofy comic who often turned up in big screen farces such as L'Aile Ou la Cuisse (1976) and Inspecteur la Bavure (1980) , Colucci gained notoriety for his emotionally rocky and stormy personal life that witnessed him battling alcoholism and extreme drug addiction - making him something of a French equivalent to John Belushi or Chris Farley. Unlike Belushi or Farley, however, Coluche made the unusual decision (for one of his background) to briefly enter mainstream politics. In a bid for the French presidential nomination in 1981, he delighted many and shocked others by reeling in an impressive 15% of the French popular vote - reason enough to believe that this actor, with solid humanitarian values and a commitment to civil rights, might have actually stood a solid chance had he campaigned more aggressively and remained in the running for a longer period. Antoine de Caunes's biopic Coluche, l'Histoire d'un mec hones in exclusively on this intriguing period of the comic's life and career, with François-Xavier Demaison playing the famous actor. The tale begins with his impulsive and drug-fueled decision to run on the ticket, coaxing bums, drunks and social outcasts to band together and lay waste to mainstream politicians. When Coluche pulls in around 10% of the vote, he draws the ire of politicos François Mitterand and Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, who promptly send out an advisor to dissuade the funnyman from running. Director de Caunes spends the majority of the film cross-cutting between recreations of Coluche's popular stage acts, and a not uncritical look at the star's attempts to push himself to his very limits and beyond -- with a mainstream political run that began as a joke but quickly took on very real and frightening proportions. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The gently evocative, nostalgia-seeped autobiographical drama A Year In My Life cinematizes writer-director Daniel Duval's recollections of his youth in 1950s France. As a thinly-veiled onscreen fictionalization of the filmmaker, Raphael Katz is Pippo, a 9-year-old boy whose parents are arrested and thrown into jail under enigmatic circumstances - leaving him in dire need of guardians. Thrown into an orphanage, he is promptly adopted by a young French farm couple: the taciturn Gustave (Jean-Paul Rouve) and his wife Cecile (Anne Brochet. Per its title, the film observes events in Pippo's life over the course of the following year, from his slight and harmless brushes with authority figures at the local school, to his decision to befriend an octogenarian widow (All Night Long's Annie Girardot) shamelessly rumored by his classmates to be a witch. Made and released in 2006, this feature represented filmmaker Duval's first major cinematic outing since the 1979 French blockbuster La Derobade. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

Valerie Lemercier's royal comedy Palais Royal! stars Valerie Lemercier as a commoner who is married to a prince (Lambert Wilson). When the king dies, the queen (Catherine Deneuve) pulls strings to have the Prince jump the order of succession and take control. The wife has little aptitude for being the wife of royalty, but soon becomes quite good at it in order to gain some power after she discovers that her husband is sleeping with another woman. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A series of tragedies befalls a small French town near the front during World War I in Yves Angelo's Grey Souls. As the film opens, the body of a young girl, Morning Beauty (Joséphine Japy) is found on the banks of the river, an apparent murder victim. We then flash back several months. Lysia (Marina Hands of The Barbarian Invasions), a pretty young woman, arrives in town to take the place of a shell-shocked schoolteacher. Because the teacher has defiled his room, Lysia moves into a small cottage on the estate of the taciturn local prosecutor, Destinat (Jean-Pierre Marielle), who has recently retired. While Lysia obsesses over her lover, who is away at the front, Destinat obsesses over Lysia, surreptitiously opening her love letters before giving them to her. Then a letter arrives that Destinat has trouble bringing himself to turn over to the lovelorn woman. The atmosphere of death and despair grows in the town. A policeman (Denis Podalydès) with a pregnant wife is routinely harassed by resentful soldiers on their way to the front. After the little girl's body is discovered, a witness comes forward who saw Destinat with her shortly before her death. But Mierck (Jacques Villeret of The Dinner Game), the vulgar, mean-spirited judge in charge of the case, and his cruel military attaché, Matziev (Franck Manzoni), seem less interested in actually solving the crime than in pinning it on some hapless lowlife. Grey Souls was scripted by Angelo and Philippe Claudel, based on Claudel's novel. The pair had previously collaborated on Sur le Bout des Doigts. Grey Souls was shown by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as part of their Rendez-Vous with French Cinema in 2006. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Eric Veniard's quirky comedy A Great Little Business is the story of a chef, Jean-Jacques (Clovis Cornillac), who dreams of running his own eatery. He takes a business class from Claude (Denis Podalydes), a frustrated novelist. When his stewardess girlfriend is away, Jean-Jacques becomes addicted to alcohol and sleeping pills. He shares his special homemade concoction with his girlfriend's parents. A Great Little Business opened in its home country of France on January 1, 2003. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A group of friends and mutual acquaintances embark on a number of vacations -- concealed or otherwise -- for relaxation and unexpected romantic hijinks in French actor/director Michel Blanc's fourth directorial effort, the romantic ensemble comedy See How They Run. While hosting a dinner party, the well-to-do Elizabeth (Charlotte Rampling) and Bertrand Lannier (Jacques Dutronc) learn that their neighbors Veronique (Karin Viard) and Jerome (Denis Podalydes) -- who used to be successful but are currently hiding their financial woes -- will be vacationing in the same resort town at the same time. Impulsively, Elizabeth invites her friend, and fellow dinner party guest, Julie (Clotilde Courau), to join them and thus make a party out of the event. However, Bertrand backs out of the trip while claiming to have to work -- only to schedule a rendezvous with his lover, his transsexual secretary (Mickael Dolmen), instead. Meanwhile, the Lannier's teenaged daughter, Emilie (Lou Doillon), has been planning a parentally endorsed vacation to the United States with one of her friends, but is in actuality going on a romantic retreat with one of her father's employees, Kevin (Sami Bouajila). As the separate excursions commence, a number of romantic couplings spring up -- as well as a number of new friendships -- that will have long-lasting effects on all of the vacationers' lives. See How They Run received the honor of being selected for inclusion into the 2002 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Ryan Shriver, Rovi

During the Nazi occupation of France during World War II, the nation's movie studios continued to operate; some filmmakers and technicians simply went along with what their new leaders demanded in hopes keeping themselves and their families safe, while others sought to subvert the messages of their captors through their work. Safe Conduct, directed by Bertrand Tavernier, is a fact-based period drama which examines two men working for a Parisian film company during 1942 and 1943, as well as their friends, family, and loved ones. Jean Devaivre (played by Jacques Gamblin) is an assistant director for Continental Pictures, a studio which has recently been taken over by the Germans and is headed by Dr. Greven (Christian Berkel), a self-styled aficionado of French filmmaking. With a wife (Marie Desgranges) and a newborn son to support, Devaivre feels he has little choice but to continue with his work, though as he rises from assisting to becoming a full fledged director thanks to the efforts of Maurice Tourneur (Philippe Morier-Genoud), he struggles to work his own views into his pictures as much as he can. Screenwriter Jean Aurenche (Denis Podalydes), a man who lives for wine, women and song (not necessarily in that order), refuses to work for Greven, and as he bounces between his many lovers - actress Suzanne Raymond (Charlotte Kady), no-nonsense streetwalker Olga (Marie Gillain), and soft-hearted Reine (Maria Pitarresi), a struggles to find a way to make a living with his words. Both Devaivre and Aurenche were real-life figures in the French film industry during the occupation, as were many of Safe Conduct's supporting characters; the real life Aurenche went on to write the screenplay for Bertrand Travernier's first feature film. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi