human2 Review of La Cage aux Folles

La Cage aux Folles (1978)

Excellent comedy, you will like it unless you're homophobic. ** Small spoilers in the following comment**

[9/10 · 10 April 2007]

This is an excellent movie, the story is very original and all the characters are extremely well cast and give a flawless performance, especially Michel Serrault as Albin the drag queen and Michel Galabru as Charrier the hysterical conservative politician. The characters are gays but it's presented in a way that makes the whole movie funny to watch, it's not some kind of pro-gay propaganda... I bought the DVD only because the movie was written in part by Francis Veber and I loved his movie "The Dinner Game". The story is about a gay couple owners of a gay night club called "La Cage Aux Folles". One of them had an affair with a woman one time and that one-night stand produced a son. One day his son come to tell him he is marrying a girl whose father is a conservative politician who hate gays, so the son ask his father to pretend to be heterosexual when he first meet his girlfriend's parents, but trouble occur during the dinner... I won't give too much details but at one time Albin the drag queen lover show up and try to pass himself as a real woman, I found that part not credible at all, anybody is able to distinguish a man from a woman, especially in this case when he have to speak... The 1996 American remake of this movie goes even farther with the drag queen dancing with a man who believe he's dancing with a woman... It's an insult to the brain... Overall I give this movie 7/10. I recommend seeing the sequel "La Cage Aux Folles 2" even if you don't liked the first because the story is very different, I would say that the sequel is less gay, more serious and have more of the "Veber touch"...