Get
Out Your Handkerchiefs
Directed by: Bertrand Blier
Distributor: Compagnie Commerciale
Française
Released: January 1978
Country: France
According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), 350 million people worldwide suffer from depression. A 2011 WHO study found that French people are
the most likely to have a “major depressive episode” sometime in their lives. Depression is treated with medications like Prozac,
Zoloft, Lexapro; psychotherapy and the occasional electro-shock therapy are
also standard ways to work through this very pervasive and common disorder.
In Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, Raoul, played by Gerard Depardieu,
introduces us to a new way to handle the problem. Raoul’s wife, Solange, is so depressed she
doesn’t even to seem to care that she is depressed. We first meet the couple over a salad lunch
at a small restaurant. Raoul expresses
to Solange his total love for her and his complete frustration that she will
not snap out of her funk. Raoul sees
that across the restaurant, a shaggy looking patron had been checking out his
rather attractive wife. Nothing overt,
just a casual glance or two from the man, but now Raoul believes he has a
cure for what ails her. Why not ask this man to have sex
with his wife? That should clear up the
cobwebs or whatever is going on in her pretty little head!
 |
| Raoul, Stephane, and Solange |
The man, Stephane, at first is
a little weirded out. But Solange doesn’t seem to
object, and Raoul the husband is the one asking him, and she's kinda hot, so what the hell? So for the next part of the movie Raoul
and his new bestie Stephane take turns (off camera) having sex with Solange to
get her to cheer up a little. Mostly, she
sits around the house without a shirt, sometimes knitting to keep busy (though never a top for herself), but still depressed as she ever was.
Besides sharing Solange, Stephane and Raoul share a love of
Mozart and talk about what it would be like to meet him. They also befriend a local grocer and share
with him their love of Mozart and their arrangement with Solange. They try to include her in their discussions
and interests, but Solange just isn’t feeling it. Then Raoul has another bright idea. Why don’t he and Solange accompany Stephane,
a teacher, for a few weeks at the children’s camp he works at? The three go there and befriend a 13-year-old
oddball named Christian. Christian is
much smarter than the rest of the kids and isn’t afraid to show it. Which generally doesn’t make him popular with
the other kids. Solange, however, takes
a shine to him. And well, without giving
too much away, this is where the film devolves from a slightly depraved sitcom
of a movie to one that may make you feel like you have to take a shower after
viewing.
 |
| Christian watching Solange knit in bed |
Get
Out Your Handkerchiefs is genuinely funny at times, and
Depardieu as Raoul and Patrick Dewaere are a good buddy-movie combo (sadly, Dewaere seems to have been the one with real demons, as he took his own life in 1982). Carole Laure as Solange is cute as a button,
even when she isn’t smiling, which is most of the movie (and speaking of buttons, Solange doesn’t have any need for them during
much of the movie). As strange as the,
er, threesome are, all of them are likable and fun to watch together. But I just didn’t buy that even in 1970’s
France this kind of stuff would happen.
And because of that, the humor is muted and whatever point being made by
director Bertrand Blier is rendered absurd.
However likeable the trio may be, their choices make them nincompoops,
however good-intentioned they seem. I
think I came out of this film as depressed as Solange was, except I had my
shirt on for the entire movie.
 |
| Solange most of the movie. Call me a prude, but I added the black box. |
The
Culture: If France was a swinging, conventions-be-damned
kinda place in the 1970’s, then this film reflects it well. While he wasn’t French, Mozart is discussed
at length.
Agenda
danger: I suppose I could be called a prude for
seeing the movie as a push to normalize non-standard sexual relationships. But I was able to buy into the movie’s first half
as all-in-good-fun; it was the last act that left me feeling it would have been
okay if this film had never been made.
Best
Picture that year: The
Deer Hunter
Rating: I’ll admit liking this movie for most of it for the humor and for the odd friendship between the three
main players. I think at first even
Christian and the trio's relation to him was charming. But when the film was over, I just shook my
head over what had just happened and lost any fondness I had for any of them.
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