I went to the cinema without any expectations and was completely blown away by this movie. In the beginning, it seems to be a boring narrative story with too many story lines and changes of space and time, but the more the movie goes on, the more the actors play greatly, the more surprises you get and the more you will laugh! Every actor plays his part in a brilliant way.
The story is not as simple as it seems to be! Réjean writes unauthorized biographies for some stars and adds some interesting and surprising parts to the boring stories of their lives. After this short introduction, he is at home and wants to present himself in a short video to get access to a website where he wants to get new contacts. He tells the story about his life, but sometimes reality, imagination and inspiration from the biographies that he has written seem to mix and the viewer never knows which facts are imagination and which are reality. A good example is the beginning, where Réjean introduces himself as a direct and honest man - but he writes unauthorized biographies and in every different part of his life, he was lying a lot (as he brings the flowers as a youn boy, when he promises to bring the money to the thief when they meet first, when he fakes the marriage demand in the restaurant in the later story and finally when he gives wrong information about the "contract" when he is the rich architect). Throughout the movie, you analyze and think a lot and you really get into this movie! And the story even reserves you a twist or surprise in the end of the movie which you wouldn't normally expect.
Every part of Rejean's life has a lot of funny, emotional and surprising elements, beginning when he is ten years old and lives in poverty with mother who works as a prostitute and meets in a stunning way his future father-in-law and when he falls in love with a girl from school, then when he gets a young adult who has always bad luck in life and who has to confront a desperated thief who could make him rich and his emotional girlfriend without any pity, then when he seems to finds the love of his life in a restaurant who though is a devil in disguise and hides her true personality, then when he is a rich architect who loses his job and his wife in the same day and hires some professionals to kill himself just before he gets suddenly a new contract and his wife comes back to him and finally when he is the old author who wants to know new people on a website.
Many famous actors from Quebec incorporate Rejean at his different stages of life and some more brilliant actors appear in more secondary roles. Because of this diversity of very talented and known actors, the movie never gets boring and because of the complexity of the different story lines, the movie needs and requests multiple viewings to understand the whole sense of the scenario. That is something which I have never ever seen before in a comedy movie! This is what makes this movie a special and sympathetic piece of art and Quebec's culture! And it is even interesting for people outside of the province to get an excellent inside view of the French Canadian cinema. For me, it is simply the best Canadian movie since "Good cop, bad cop" and my favourite movie of 2010 along side with "Shutter Island".
