The Favor, the Watch and the Very Big Fish (1991)
A farce, Hoskins plays a photographer who specializes in religious pictures who searches for a model for Jesus. He does a favor for a friend and finds himself doing a voice track for a porno movie with Natasha Richardson. Hoskins finds his model for Jesus in Jeff Goldblum and a romantic triangle begins in which Goldblum finds adoring crowds believing him to be Jesus and then begins to believe it himself.
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Sick Product of a Sick System
Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike
The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
As several people have mentioned, this movie is evidently intended for a more "sophisticated" palate. As a "provincial" American, it wasn't my favorite. :pThere were some amusing lines and moments in this movie, which is what kept me hanging on. I love both Bob Hoskins and Jeff Goldblum, but I'm not a fan of black comedy or anything on the "dark" side. However, the acting was superb and they completely involved you in the show.As the movie progressed, it became depressing as things started going downhill for the characters. If you don't like depressing movies - I'd avoid it.
This movie is certainly not everyone's cup of tea. Mine it is, big time. Rarely have I seen a movie that I liked more than this one. I wonder why others don't like it. What is it they don't see that I see? Or is there something that bothers them but not me? The pace is slow, yes, but there are a lot of details and twists to keep me easily entertained. And the pace is certainly faster than in Greenaway's movies. When I saw it the first time, I couldn't wait to see what weird happens next.The movie is more strange that intellectual. However, I think it cannot be enjoyed by Americans who expect to enjoy a film also (only ?) if they leave their brains home. You might say there is something European in the whole thing.
You have to enjoy dry humor to really get the benifet of the film. Bob Hoskins plays the main character Louis Aubinard who thinks he is the most unlucky person on the face of the earth. His whole life begins to change when his boss played by Michel Blanc threatens to fire him if he does not find an actor to be photographed as Jesus. After work he visits his friend Zalmen who is sick he asks Louis to do him a FAVOR. He asks him to go down to studio and pretend that he is him and do the sound affects for a film. After that he seea a fish market outside his friend's apartment building and sees a VERY BIG FISH and buys it for supper. The next morning he goes to the studio only to find out he is looping sound affects for a porno film. At the studio he works with a women by the name of Sybil played by Natasha Richardson. When going out to lunch with her she tells the him the story of her last job and a never smiling pianist who falls head over heals for her. She meets him because of a little rich girl who will give her a WATCH if she can get him to smile. And that is only the first 45 minutes of this very humorus film. It is a great film to watch on a rainy day.
This is a lovely piece of black humor and non sequitur, and I can't believe I never heard of it until a friend showed it to me last night. While it has some parts which are not absolutely necessary, most of it is splendidly daft and macabre, and seems like the sort of thing I would have heard about, considering my taste for such films as Delicatessen, Brazil, Naked Lunch, Repo Man and so on. Why didn't anyone tell me????