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L'Homme Ideal

Also known as The Ideal Man
In French, with English subtitles (1996)

Laszlo, the pastry chef: "She has better taste in pies than in men."

Let's see. I wake up next to Roy Dupuis after a passionate one night stand. He asks me for my phone number. Instead of giving it to him, I push him out the door because it's my thirty-fifth birthday and I'm all bummed out. Yeah, that would happen.

L'Homme ideal is a romantic comedy about Lucy (Marie-Lise Pilote), an editor-in-chief at "Vague" magazine. (Yes, "vague" means the same thing in French as it does in English.) Realizing that her biological clock is about to explode and desperate to have a baby before it is too late, she steps up her search for the "ideal man" by dating an impressive series of losers.

And there are a lot of them. So many that I didn't think they'd ever get to the inevitable Mr. Right, who is, of course, right under her nose. My favorite loser was probably Bob (Remy Girard), who faked an orgasm for Lucy in the middle of a crowded cafe a la Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.

Some of the lines were quite funny ("At my age, guys who aren't coming out of a divorce are either defrocked priests or polygamists"), but this movie just didn't do much for me. I felt cheated. After all, the movie was called The Ideal Man, and it wasn't about Roy Dupuis. He was in the opening scene for about two minutes, and showed up for a pointless two-liner near the end (standing in line at the sperm bank), and that was that.

But he was listed second in the credits, because the actors were given in order of appearance. Did they do that deliberately so that it would seem like he had a bigger role? Was he doing someone a favor?

Two out of four stars,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

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