The Libertine (2000)

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

A French film set in France in 1789 when the encyclopedia was banned. This was a historical comedy filled with sex, religion and frontal nudity! It was about a man named Denis Diderot (Vincent Perez) who was the creator of the encyclopedia. His wife, Madame Diderot (Francoise Lepine) and his daughter Angelique Diderot (Vahina Giocante). And Audrey Tautou starred as Julie d'Holbach. This movie was filled with extremely funny moments, the funniest ones were; the "Pig Organ", they were pulled by their tails to create a melody. I was impressed with that. Next, was when Diderot got a boner when seeing Madame Therbouche (Fanny Ardant) while she was painting a portrait of him naked. " Growing start of steadfastness". A cute scene with Baronne d'Holbach (Josiane Balasko) walking her pet pig on a leash and it was dressed up. And lastly, an Adam and Eve scene with Mr Diderot chasing his wife around the garden naked with the Baroness and Le cardinal (Michel Sarrault), the very dramatic one watching.And then, the Cardinal sniffed table salts and the Baroness says:" I feel queasy! I need fresh air!" HA!HA!HA!There was a terrible scene with the Baroness's pig cooked up as a lunch and she replaced her pig a canary. SHAME! There were also some LOVELY things to see in this film like, the Turkish baths and messages. Beautiful. And the party thrown for the Cardinal with dance music, fire works and wine. Quite something. And at the end, Diderot FELL IN LOVE WITH MADAME THERBOUCHE!!! Uh-oh!It's lovely to see, hear and have conversations in French. Fun movie! With dance music!

This movie is meant to be a comedy, but won't even make you smile.It is vulgar, not funny at all. I am still wondering how stars like Vincent Perez and Michel Serrault could make such a poor movie. The dialogues are not as witty as one might expect. One of the characters ends up stark naked in public and even that is not funny.One might want to compare this movie to other French historical comedies. If you want to see the difference, try to get hold of "Beaumarchais, l'Insolent" or "Ridicule", these are truly good comedies with a number of French stars.If you want to have an idea of how bad Le Libertin is, just check how many second hand DVD copies are sold on the internet and for what prices. A couple of bucks would buy you a brand new copy. At least you could use the DVD case for some other better movie.

This movie had the potential to be so much more with such an ensemble cast and premise. Unfortunately, from the first minutes of the movie onward, it becomes quickly self-evident that the movie is a pretentious and failed attempt at trying to be a smart comedy.The acting was over the top, the dialog mediocre and the characters unbelievable. The humour used in the movie was only successful in a rare few instances. Mostly it just falls short of being funny and quickly becomes just plain annoying. And that's without going into the contrived twists and turns of the plot. The closing credits were a welcome relief to a very disappointing movie.

A must for those who are not fully foolish to be Hollywoodish!The reason to pass my comments on this nice French movie was the vote on 05/18/00 equal to 4,7... Really, some IMDb customers miss great atmosphere of the comedy and superb play of the cast.I definitely want everybody, who never saw charming Vincent Perez, to catch him and the rest in this artificial picture from the life of 18th century philosopher Denis Diderot. Never heard that he was so romantic to walk nude during the creation of his encyclopaedia, never imagined that this didactic tutor (Diderot at the age of 60s was a pen friend of Russian tzarina Ekaterina the Great, when she was 30) was so light. Seems that duet of Perez and Fanny Ardant has a personal sound (just to recall that Vincent dated Jacqueline Bisset).Movie was shown at Russian satellite channel (NTV+) before it obtained great success in cinemas. Really Russians have better taste than 24 voters rated it from 1 to 6. Please, wipe such bad results and watch Le Libertin again!