My beast friend (2006)

An antiques dealer makes a bet with his colleague that he has a friend. This is something the colleage has every reason to doubt, as the man is a craggy personality, a social catastrophy, who doesn't seem to care about other people. But of course he does, at heart. He meets the cabdriver Bruno on whose services he relies - but friendship is no service. My beast friend may be a pretty predictable feel-good film about the value of friendship but at least Daniel Auteuil makes a decent performance as Francois, a man who is completely blind in relation to himself. The problem with this kind of movie is that it sugarcoats something that is a real tragedy in human life: loneliness and the attempt to get away from it. One can also say that it is a laudable thing that a film delves into the theme of friendship: what is it to 'get' friends? What does one mean when one says that one has lots of friends? The film doesn't really dig deep, instead opting for the usual complication-solution route. The moral of the film is a heartwarming message: you cannot acquisit friends like you buy a vase. If one chose to interpret the film charitably, one could say it is about the eternal philosophical question on whether virtue can be taught or whether virtuous behavior is some different kind of quality. Bruno, the cab driver, tries to teach Francois some important lessons about life, what it means to attend to another human being. Can anybody teach somebody that? (It seems this kind of language would fit the film.)