J Paul Johnson
Unpredictable. Edgy. Smart. Disturbing, even. Sometimes sinister, sometimes sexy, sometimes both. That’s what a John Malkovich role was like in the actor’s heyday. Who else would be picked to play both Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde and Conrad’s Mr. Kurtz? Or for that matter, F. W. Murnau, Tom Ripley, and Spider-Man nemesis The Vulture? Roles like these and in surprise hits like in Dangerous Liaisons and Adaptation signified what “Being John Malkovich” meant. If you’re wondering what Mr. Malkovich has been up to lately, a recent venture among a surprising many is no Mr. Hyde, Mr. Kurtz, nor Mr. Ripley; it’s instead Mr. Blake at Your Service, a surprisingly tepid family feel-good French comedy ostensibly about the challenges of aging.
Not that there’s anything wrong with a good comedy about the challenges of aging. I’m partial myself to eldertales that study and celebrate life’s passages, from films as diverse as Tokyo Story (and its source, Make Way for Tomorrow), Up, and The Straight Story to, say, last year’s delightfully comic Karaoke or the year before’s tenderly sober Everything Went Fine and slyly spry Martinez. Those are films that treat their aging and aged protagonists seriously and manage profound observations about the complexities of life’s later stages. I sense Mr. Blake at Your Service is aiming for something similar, but it’s so, so caught up in its supporting cast of uninteresting characters and mundane events it can’t manage to convey much of anything about its titular protagonist, even when he’s played by a game Mr. Malkovich.
Do you remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George are in discussion with NBC execs about their prospective series Jerry? And a desperate George, sensing that their series “about nothing” isn’t going anywhere, invents an absurd Plan B, one that lands with a resounding thud because it is so inane? It involved a character being sentenced to become Jerry’s butler, upon which wacky hijinks would assumedly ensue.
Except that everyone—Jerry, the NBC execs, the series’ viewers—all know a dud of a pitch when they hear it, as there’s really nothing inherently comic about the conceit of the recalcitrant butler. Only George thought otherwise. I wonder what the makers of Mr. Blake at Your Service would have thought of it: here Gilles Legardinier adapts his own 2012 novel Complètement cramé! (with co-writer Cristel Henon) in serving up the same conceit, albeit stretched out to nearly two hours.
Malkovich plays Andrew Blake, a recently widowed British businessman who is about to be fêted at an important black-tie celebration of his accomplishments when he decides to skip the ceremony and venture off on a journey. The narrative dispenses quickly with this brief glimmer of the man Andrew Blake had become: how he built his fortune or earned the respect of his peers isn’t addressed. Only one fact is germane: he is a widower of four years, still grieving his late wife, and leaves his life of luxury to return to the place where they first met—the Domaine de Beauvillier estate in France.
The estate is closed to the public and fallen on some difficult times (but still expansive and gorgeous). Blake hopes to register as a guest, but the manor isn’t taking guests, and so he is mistaken as an applicant—on strict probation—for a position as … here it comes … a butler. That being his only option to continue his pilgrimage, he accepts. There, he meets each of the residents, supporting characters that feel less like actual human beings than scripted personae with an assemblage of quirky traits.
Among these are the estate owner, Mrs. Nathalie Beauviller (Fanny Ardant), a widow overwhelmed by the financial obligations of the estate; Odile (Émilie Dequenne), a willful and obstreperous cook; Magnier (Phillippe Bas), a cantankerous groundskeeper; Manon (Eugenie Anselin), a young and naive waif of a maid; and a surly cat. Where Mr. Blake at Your Service might spend its precious minutes exploring its protagonist’s past relationships and future prospects, the script and direction allow neither, at least not for more than a minute here or there. Instead, scenes plod along with thudding humor: Phillippe keeps calling Blake by the wrong name—bake, fake, etc.; a surly male housecat is discovered to have had a litter of kits; Blake falls off a ladder, into a coma, and comes out of it. These scenes are about as amusing as the above sentence paraphrasing them.
One can’t fault the cast. Malkovich, who has been as busy as, say, Nicolas Cage in piling up roles in lesser films of late, offers up a yeoman effort but is hamstrung by the limitations of the script. The supporting cast members all have their idiosyncratic charms. (Sadly, Cannes Best Actress-winning Dequenne passed away earlier this year from a rare cancer.) The estate itself is lovingly lit and shot. Mr. Blake at Your Service is nothing if not a perfectly professional endeavor from all involved.
Even so, the cast and crew can’t quite sell a script that never really lets us inside its protagonist’s head—or heart. Perhaps this is a consequence of an author adapting and directing his own novel: where a novel can spend pages inside a protagonist’s mind, exploring his past and contemplating his present and future, a film must necessarily instead depict events. Those depicted onscreen in Mr. Blake at Your Service, for the most part, are neither especially insightful nor all that comic in nature. They just keep happening.
As impressive as Mr. Malkovich’s long and esteemed career has been, we can hope that its latter stages will let the still-sexy sexagenarian find roles that put his considerable talents to use. At the apex of his career, you could hardly take your eyes off him. Here, in this tepid and largely unfunny comedy, you’ll find yourself like Mr. Blake—pining for a past that is long gone.
