In the famous comic Asterix ,Obelix (see "Le Tour De Gaule" ) does not consider himself fat ;neither does Victor,till a producer tells him he is paunchy.
Michel Vorcoret 's five movies represent one of the absolute nadirs of the French cinema of the seventies,the likes of his "Bidasses" and others.
" Nous Maigrirons Ensemble " is a notch or two above the usual level ,thanks to its main actors,Peter Ustinov ,who impresses me with his perfect French ,and Bernadette Laffont.They must really be very very talented to make this flick watchable.
The screenplay is essentially made of sketches, and their quality is quite uneven;not bad moments: the visit to the doctor with the undecipherable jargon who charges his patient 500 Francs ; the meal when Corinne puts Victor on a diet ;the weight watchers meeting where the nutritionist acts like a teacher who hands their papers to her students ;the Freudian analysis of obesity by Dr Genevieve (Sylvie Joly,who ,left to her own devices par a non'existent director, hams it up though).
On the other hand ,some gags are heavy-handed, hackneyed: Victor stuck in his car door ,or in the cement;the health center with the obligatory grotesque queen; for good measure, Corinne's hairdresser is also a gay; Victor gobbling Choucroute in front of a crippled man in a wheelchair is sheer bad taste too ;the meeting with the blonde and the break-up with Catherine,with a "moving" score of syrupy violins drowns the final scenes out.
Ustinov was so talented an actor that he manages to survive such a poor work.
