My wife and I, as is probably the wont with editors everywhere, can’t stop paying attention to words. Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by British editor Lynne Truss, is one of our favorite shared non-fiction treats. We race to see who can finish a word search or crossword puzzle first. For fun.

We play word games in the car, too, and can’t help pointing out interesting (or incorrect) turns of phrase on billboards and signs. A few weeks ago, Jenn trumped anything I could ever come up with. While silently reading through a billboard slogan, she casually announced, “Know it all should be hyphenated.” I nearly fell out of the Jeep—and I was driving!

Bruno the Paris cab driver is a know-it-all, but the ingratiating kind. (Did you catch the hyphens, there?) He knows the minutest details about all the side streets and historic sites. He’s gregarious and lovable. He dreams of getting a shot at one of various huge trivia-oriented TV game shows. He auditions repeatedly—but always freezes up, able to remember all the details about a game, for instance, but not the name of the team that won.

Into Bruno’s cab steps François, a highly successful art dealer who has just made a bet. François, you see, is a know-it-all of a different, uh, less-ingratiating sort. He knows his trade inside out, but never sees the people with whom he deals. He’s friendless, cold, and heartless, and all his associates know it. His female business partner, in fact, bets him that he can’t even name his best friend, much less produce the phantom.

I think you can see where this is going. It’s the kind of setup one might script for a “situation comedy.”

My Best Friend, a French film released outside the U.S. under the title Mon Meilleur Ami, is being marketed—and praised by critics—as a comedy. Now, the term “comedy” may certainly be applied to this film in the classical dramatic sense: that is, this is no tragedy; it aims for a happy, if bittersweet, ending. But the closest the film gets to “comedy,” as we’ve come to think of “French comedy,” is the very gentle opening scene in which we find out that François is not attending a funeral as a friend—but as an ambulance chaser, of sorts. Wry, but not likely to induce a guffaw.

The banter between François and his peanut gallery has some nice barbs, and Bruno’s pathos may bring a smile to your face; but if you’re expecting comedy even in the gentle vein of recent French-language releases like The Valet and Angel-A, or certain segments of Paris, je t’aime, you’ll likely be disappointed. My Best Friend is far more interested in comedy as drama than comedy as farce. The word “broad” would neither come up in or be applied to this film.

In short, both François and Bruno have some serious things to learn about themselves before either can hope to really befriend the other—and each must eat some crow. While some crow may be eaten with humor, the crow eaten here comes with relish. Danny Boon hits all the right marks as Bruno, and the prolific Daniel Auteuil may have never delivered a more subtle dramatic performance—even in a full-on drama. Not once are Bruno and François played as unsympathetic buffoons, stereotypes, or straw men to be laughed at. These are characters you can take seriously. Seriously.

If you like dramas with a sense of humor, and are interested in seeing how two men go about becoming true friends—and don’t mind the idea of dramatic tension being generated by an episode of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (in French, with English subtitles)—My Best Friend may prove very entertaining.

But if you’re looking for comedy, this film is no Chuck and Larry. (Thank God.)

My Best Friend is rated PG-13 for “some strong language.” Subtitles always take the edge off of strong language for me, but the rating is probably fair for most audiences. And I really can’t think of any reason a teenager would want to see this film anyway.

Courtesy of a local publicist, Greg attended a press screening of My Best Friend.