'My Best Friend'

By Bob Mondello

Published July 12, 2007 at 2:00 PM EDT

An emotionally chilly antiques dealer (Daniel Auteuil) will lose a costly bet if he can't produce a "best friend" by the end of the month.

When all the acquaintances that occur to him as possibilities tell him they can't stand him, he hires a convivial cabbie (Danny Boon) to teach him how to relate to people better. Then he introduces the cabbie around as his best friend, a strategy that works until the cabbie realizes he's being used.

The script is a tad schematic, but clueless Auteuil and gregarious Boon are a winning combo — great fun to watch in a tale of male bonding, French-style.

WYPR Arts

Bob Mondello

Bob Mondello, who jokes that he was a jinx at the beginning of his critical career — hired to write for every small paper that ever folded in Washington, just as it was about to collapse — saw that jinx broken in 1984 when he came to NPR.

See stories by Bob Mondello

'My Best Friend'

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