Marina Fois & Lorant Deutsch

Uranium traffickers. I think. The blithely confounding narrative of the French sex comedy "The Joy of Singing (Le Plaisir de Chanter)" has something to do with uranium traffickers, though co-writer and director Ilan Duran Cohen is more interested in the carnal, as opposed to chemical, pursuits of his characters. His film is pro-nudity and anti-logic. You could start the year with far worse priorities.

An earlier Cohen title, "Confusion of Genders," hints at the genre-subverting stratagems here. Two intelligence agents, Muriel (Marina Fois) and her younger subordinate, Philippe (Lorant Deutsch), bring their untutored voices to an undercover operation requiring them to pose as opera students. Everyone in the private class attended by the merry widow (Jeanne Balibar) of a murdered uranium smuggler is either a spy or a double agent or some such. The situation is ripe for farce, though whatever type of entertainment you think you're in for, Cohen's film provides something else -- its own tricksy brand of deadpan archness.

Muriel has grown weary of her infertility issues, as well as her bantamweight affairs with "insipid and hairless" young men. She and Philippe find in the opera class a ripe array of potential lovers, including a male prostitute and a female public-relations dish. The various intersections bring about a great deal of comic soul-searching and occasional forays into crime-solving. The entire film has a pleasantly distracted quality, in tune with its characters.

Cohen appears to be trying to corral and recombine every known movie genre except the Western in "The Joy of Singing (Le Plaisir de Chanter)," from soft-core porn to spy thriller to romantic comedy. No one, even its makers, would claim the film works entirely. But its rangy personality offers a marked contrast to the one- or, at best, two-track Hollywood products commonly filling the multiplex. Fois in particular brings a wry authority to Muriel's puzzlements. Whether this film's brand of High Quirk is for you, well, that's for you to find out. "You both look beautiful," states the agents' boss, played by steely Dominique Reymond (of "Summer Hours"). "Did you sleep together?" This being a French bauble, there really are only two possible answers to her question: Yes, or not yet.

 

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"The Joy of Singing (Le Plaisir de Chanter)" Movie Trailer

 

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MPAA rating: No MPAA rating (nudity, sexual content, violence and some language).

Running time: 1:39.

Cast: Marina Fois (Muriel); Lorant Deutsch (Philippe); Jeanne Balibar (Constance); Caroline Ducey (Anna).

Credits: Directed by Ilan Duran Cohen; written by Cohen and Philippe Lasry; produced by Anne-Cécile Berthomeau and Ilan Duran Cohen.