This movie was so stultifyingly boring. I laughed a total of three times. Not deep, satisfying, cathartic laughter, but shortlived, mild chuckles. This might have been funnier if it were not fiction, but in a work of fiction, I´d expect some intelligent humor rather than relentless tedium and poking fun at the expense of hackneyed stereotypes. I honestly cannot believe that the screenplay won an award. I myself looked at the minute counter about every ten minutes and had to take breaks to make coffee, run a bath, eat a snack...
The only parts I enjoyed were the Chopin music and the final anti-Europe political diatribe. Otherwise, an utter waste of time and something of a bad joke. My impression is that the director thought that he was creating something ¨ingenious¨. His influence appears to be the Coen brothers, who also have a lot of ¨humor¨ based on what in reality would be rude treatment of other people as stupid philistines. Sometimes the Coen brothers are funny, but not always...
Perhaps this film would be amusing to someone who knew and speculated about the real disappearance of the protagonist in 2011. Is Michel Houellebecq famous? News to me. I only continued watching this thing because it was in French. In the end, I came away with the feeling of having squandered a chunk of my time on bad reality t.v.
