I Do: How to Get Married and Stay Single (Prête-moi ta main) (2006)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Romantic Comedy	Featurette-Making Of
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	85:16 (Case: 89)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Eric Lartigau
Studio Distributor	Canal+ Entertainment One	Starring	Alain Chabat Charlotte Gainsbourg Bernadette Lafont Wladimir Yordanoff Grégoire Oestermann Véronique Barrault Marie-Armelle Deguy Katia Lewkowicz Louise Monot Luce Mouchel Christiane Millet Aïssa Maïga Tatiana Gousseff
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Erwann Kermorvant

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English (Burned In)	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

Eric Lartigau’s Prête-moi ta main (2006) (literally Lend Me Your Hand) reunites Alain Chabat with Charlotte Gainsbourg, who both starred in Yvan Attal’s Ils se marièrent et eurent beaucoup d'enfants (2004) and Michael Gondry’s La Science des Rêves.  Prête-moi ta main also reunites Gainsbourg with her L’Effrontée co-star Bernadette Lafont.

Based on an original idea by Chabat, Prête-moi ta main is the tale of Luis, (Chabat) a successful perfume designer who is very happy living the life of a bachelor at age 43. However his family of five sisters and his widowed mother (affectionately known as the G7), are tired of taking care of him and decide it is time for Luis to settle down and marry. But Luis isn’t too happy with his family’s decision, the first (and last time) he brought the woman he loved home; she left in tears and broke his heart.

Still, Luis reluctantly participates in the random blind dates his mother and sisters set-up but one day strikes a devious idea. Find a girl, any girl and pretend to be a couple. Sounds simple enough right! Luis would teach the girl to impress his mother and five sisters and the two would keep up the charade for a few months and intend to marry. But on the day of the wedding, the girl would disappear and Luis would be left standing at the alter, and hopefully Luis’ family would learn not to meddle in his love life. Or will they?

Luis find’s his fake fiancé in Emma (Gainsbourg), who happens to be his best-friend’s sister. Thing’s naturally fall out of place as the free-spirited Emma begins to actually be liked by Luis’s family and perhaps Luis himself.

Prête-moi ta main was very successful financially and critically in France – it is a well executed romantic comedy. Fans of Chabat and Gainsbourg would be delightfully pleased. I also enjoyed Grégoire Oestermann’s performance of Luis' best-friend Pierre-Yves. Prête-moi ta main is a light, yet charming romantic tale of family and commitment.

Video

Prête-moi ta main is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen and it is 16x9 enhanced.

The average bit-rate of the feature, which has been encoded over a Dual Layer DVD, is 4.56 Mb/s.

The quality of the transfer is very good. The look of the film is sharp and natural.

Shadow detail is well exhibited and colour is considerably rich with natural flesh tones.

Minor film artefacts appear on the opening company credits, however there are no issues regarding film artefacts or compression during the feature film.

The burnt-in English subtitles appear in a clear white font and are a decent translation of the onscreen French dialogue.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

Only a French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) soundtrack is offered on this DVD.

As expected the soundtrack does make full use of the surround sound but dialogue remains clear and the audio track is faultless.

The dialogue is mostly emitted from the front of the soundstage with occasional atmospheric sound and score emitted from the rear speakers.

Erwann Kermorvant composed the whimsical original score for the film.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu

A still and practical main menu which features scene selection options and access to the extra feature content.

Featurette-Making Of (28:48)

The making of feature includes interviews with the cast and crew expanding on the development and themes of the film. This is a standard behind the scenes feature filmed during production of Prête-moi ta main, but it is great to see footage of Chabat and Gainsbourg kidding around between takes. An English subtitle stream automatically accompanies this French language feature.

Prête-moi ta main is available in France on standard DVD and HD DVD.

The Standard DVD includes the following extra features:

• Audio commentary by director Eric Lartigau and actor/co-producer Alain Chabat
• Making Of (28:48)
• Big family (2:53 min)
• Bord cadre (22:59 min)
• Muthu: Le Film Culte d’Emmanuelle
• 5 Deleted Scenes
• Bêtisier (5:56 min)
• Cast & crew filmographies
• Poster gallery

The HD DVD includes the above and the following extra feature and technical specifications:

• Interactive feature
• French DTS-HD Master 5.1

Both the DVD and HD DVD do not include English subtitles for the film or extra feature content.

Prête-moi ta main is a light, yet charming romantic tale of family and commitment. Fans of Chabat and Gainsbourg would be delightfully pleased.

The picture and sound quality is faultless.

 The Making Of is a nice inclusion for the local DVD release.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall