Le Viager

Le Viager is a French comedy film directed by Pierre Tchernia. It was released in 1972, adapted from a script by René Goscinny.

Plot

In 1930 in Paris, Léon Galipeau, doctor, receives and examines Louis Martinet, 59 years old.

Convinced that his patient has only two years to live at most, Galipeau convinces his brother Emile to acquire against a 'viager' (life annuity) a beautiful countryside house of Martinet, located in a 'fishers village' named Saint-Tropez. Thinking his brother to be right, despite several warning signs that Dr Galipeau is always wrong whenever he says something (a running gag through the movie, especially when concerning the decade prior to WWII), Emile, under the advice of the notary redacting the life annuity contract, accepts to index the 'viager' each year following the course of aluminium - a material being 'à la mode' at the time.

However, despite Dr Galipeau's repeated claims Martinet isn't long for this life, years by years, Louis Martinet is getting better and better, and the price of the 'viager' keeps getting higher. Finally fed up with this 'sick man who won't die', the whole Galipeau family decide to try and get rid of Martinet. Their attempts start to become more and more desperate as time goes. Sadly, all their plans fail for one reason of another.

In 1940, an attempt to make Martinet pass for a German spy is foiled by bad timing, as it happens on the day of France's surrender. In 1943, the trick is repeated, this time with an attempt to make Martinez pass for a Gaullist and a Résistant. Sadly for the Galipeau family, it fails once more due to the letter not being delivered—that's it, until the Libération, upon which their letter allows Martinet to become a decorated hero. A few years later, during a visit of Martinet to Paris, the Galipeau attempt to make him have a heart attack, to no avail as the old man is perfectly healthy and quite happy to climb steps, smoke and drink. The excesses, however, end up killing the Doctor's wife, Marguerite.

Yet a few years later, Emile Galipeau, fed up once more due to the ruined finances of the family, decides to just shoot Martinet and to do so, try to convince him to go 'make a trip on pedalo', his plan being to drop the corpse in the Mediterranean Sea, where there is no tide—nobody will find out, or so he explains to his wife and brother. The plan gets derailed, however, when the pedalo get stuck due to a mechanical problem; Emile not knowing how to swim, Martinet himself swims back to the beach to get help from the renter, who turns out to be a former marine officer who got caught in the Galipeau's earlier plots and want revenge on the family. While Martinet happily gets back to his home to get dry clothes, Emile and former Capitaine de Corvette Busigny-Dumaine kill each other, and their corpses are never found.

Almost twenty years later, Martinet falls ill with the flu, and the Doctor and Elvire, Emile's widow, rush out at the clinic he has been sent to, only to find him once more the picture of health, the doctors and nurses having managed to save him. Deciding it's time for another attempt, the Doctor and Elvire both come up with different traps in the house—waxing the stairs and weakening the barrier on the second floor's window. They ends up falling for each other's trap; Elvire die from her fall, and the Doctor ends up with several broken bones due to sliding in the stairs. While visiting him in the hospital, Martinet gently asks him for news of Noël, Emile and Elvire's son.

It turns out Noël took a bad turn in life and is a thief and burglar. Just as the narrator finishes explaining this side of the story, Noël breaks in the Préfet de Police's apartment, right on the night of his birthday, where an assembly of police officers were waiting for him in the dark to make him a surprise. As the Doctor visits Noël in jail before his trial and tell him he'll continue to pay for the 'viager' even if Noël stays in jail for ten or twenty years, Noël reveals to his uncle his mother, Elivre, had kept a diary, where all the Galipeau's attempts to kill Martinet are mentioned. Noël then threatens his uncle to reveal everything should the Doctor not hire a high-profile lawyer to defend his case, promising he'll say nothing even if he's condemned in that case.

Wanting to get rid of his nephew, the Doctor actually contacts a cheap, bad lawyer. But the tables get turned at the trial when Martinet unexpectedly show up as a morality witness, pleading for the judge to allow him to give back some of the 'love and care' he received from the Galipeau. Noël ends up being acquitted, and the Doctor dies from a heart attack in the tribunal—just after the lawyer, who was happily shocked by the news he had won the case for the first time of his life.

As Noël and Martinet discuss while they follow the hearse to the cemetery, the sudden realization Martinet is going to be celebrating his 100th birthday in a few days makes Noël snaps and try, just like his parents and the rest of his family, ro get rid of Martinet once for all. To do so, he hires the help of two associates he charges with killing the old man while he himself will be firing fireworks, which will give him an alibi. However, as he makes his way to the place he had chosen to fire them, the old car he's using break down, and the cigarette lighter pops out of its receptacle and sets the fireworks ablaze, killing Noël as his associates just watch, jaws hanging.

The movie ends up on the 100-year-old Louis Martinet, smiling as he gets back to his house, surrounded by the ghosts of the Galipeau family, while happily claiming he will never forget the Galipeau and their generosity toward him – having never realized they had attempted to kill him and were victims of their own plots.

Cast

References

    External links

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