director : josiane balasko writers : patrick aubrée and josiane balasko ( story by telsche borman ) starring : victoria abril , josiane balasko , alain chabat , ticky holgado , miguel bosé contrary to popular belief , not every single foregin film released to an american market is a masterpiece . some of them aren't even good . some examples of this principle are the aboslutely dreadful " un indien dans la ville " ( presented as " little indian , big city , " and remade into that crap tim allen flick , " jungle2jungle " ) , and this . what could have been a clever little sex comedy turns into one mess of a french flick . " french twist " ( the " cool " american title , not the real one , which was " gazon maudit , " literally meaning " twisted ground , " or something like that ) deals with a married couple with kids , and the intrusion of a stranger who kinda screws things up for them . loli and alain chabat ( victoria abril and alain chabat ) are not exactly happily married . always on business trips , alain chabat more than once cheats on her , and she eventually finds out . and one day , she meets a butch mechanic , marijo ( the co-writer/director josiane balasko ) , and they two kinda hit it off . so she decides she will get back at alain chabat by doing the obvious : sleeping with marijo . but she soons starts to not only fall in love with marijo , but she's also realizes she's still in love with alain chabat . so , of course , she does the obvious from that : she decides to keep them both . she'll be ( and sleep ) with each of them for 3 days each , then on sunday , she'll rest by herself . after all , she needs it if she's gonna have more sex than sylvia kristel . the film goes on for over an hour and a half , through stupidity after stupidity , moronic twist after moronic twist , and soon there's the little ironic ( ! ! ! ) ending . i know it's a completely different culture , and i'm quite familiar with the french and their cinema , but this is just bad . none of the characters are more intelligent than peter stormare in " fargo " ( a movie where stupid characters were backed up to make a point ) , and any action they do is pretty much just to get a hopeful chuckle from the audience . what's shocking is this was not only one of france's biggest hits , but it was nominated for a lot of cesars ( french equivalent of oscars ) . the writing and directing is really the big problem with it . josiane balasko does a good acting job with her role , but her little sex comedy isn't very humerous , entertaining , or even deep at all . even woody allen's not-very-good " a midsummer night's sex comedy " is intelligent , well-written , and possesses some depth . this is shallow , unfunny , and pretty annoying to watch . the film moves at the pace of a snail , and is damn-near painful to watch . thank god for the fast forward button . the acting , however , isn't bad at all . the actors do the best they can with the bad material , and victoria abril is pretty likable despite the script ( and the fact that she's stupid enough to try to divide herself over two people when she has kids ) . and alain chabat has some funny moments as the neurotic husband . but " french twist " is just pretty lame . it's not overly horrible , and has a couple very , very , very brief moments . but it's just a really crap film , and an example of an ill-advised distribution of a foreign film . 
