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L'homme est une femme comme les autres (1998)
A very sensitive comedy with a beautiful soundtrack
This is actually a most enjoyable movie, especially if you like the music : the original soundtrack is by Giora Feidman, the greatest clarinetist playing Krezmer music! It's beautiful.
The movie starts like a basic comedy. There are all the ingredients : a caricatured (Franco-)American Jewish family, a rich uncle who wants his name to be transmitted, and the only son who turns out to be gay. To a previous comment who argued that the Jewish people in this film were unrealistic and that it lacked of actual Jewish actors, I will answer that the director is Jewish and that's far enough (there is no more need to have a Jew to play a Jew than to have a gay to play a gay! How silly
). He knows pretty well what he talks about.
Simon Eskanazy is Jewish, but as a gay man, he is non-religious and a bit distant from the few traditions that his family perpetuates - and yet it's a pretty normal family when you remove the kippa. His uncle, though, wants him to get married and have a child so that the Eskanazy name - with a Y - won't disappear with him. Knowing that Simon is gay, he offers him a huge amount of money that he can get as soon as he get married. First disgusted by the idea, Simon, encouraged by his mother and his debts, will search for a naive woman to get married - and divorced - as soon as possible. But it's Rosalie, daughter of a very conservative Jewish family, who will find him, and fall in love with his talent as a clarinetist
So at the first glance, it's a light story and you laugh a lot. Still, when you look more closely, there are hints of deepness that make the movie all the more interesting. Simon is madly in love with his cousin David, who is straight (he celebrates his wedding at the beginning of the movie). He can't get rid of his feelings for him, even when the naive and lovable Rosalie manages to touch his heart. Whereas you thought that you couldn't make gayer than Simon, Simon arrives at a point where he doubts - maybe he could enjoy a straight life, a nice wife, children
Very funny and moving, I can watch this film again and again and I still love it.