What a waste of my time!!!

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It's easy to understand why Guitry would write a play about Beaumarchais, a man of action, a wit and a man of the theatre he would have obviously admired. What is not as clear is how much of his original intention was wasted in this dreary production. The characters are charmless, witless and move in and out much too quickly for any of the cameo players to make any distinct impression.Worst of all, the actors give in to the worst temptation they could have felt, which is to play in an unconvincing pedantic, precious and yet anachronistic manner, something Guitry would never have allowed in one of his plays. The worst offender is Fabrice Luchini, who doesn't look anything like the original Beaumarchais and has to be most prissy and effeminate heterosexual alive today. His "moues", "oeillades", "plissements de lèvres", egg-sucking and neck-twisting mannerisms succeed in nothing more than a rather good impression of Eric Idle playing an upper-class frump in drag.The script doesn't spend a single minute pondering the gravity of the title character's situation as the man who wrote the play that arguably brought about the French Revolution. His motivation is never explained apart from the fact that he was left holding the bag of the expenses he incurred helping the American Revolution. In that sense, the film is extremely superficial and potentially libellous.Its only qualities lie in its original locations (including creaky floors that should have been corrected with a little Foley work), its magnificent score by Jean-Claude Petit (Cyrano de Bergerac, 1990) and its costumes. It is unfortunate that the latter most often end up wearing the players rather than the other way around.In short, this film is a discredit to both Beaumarchais and Guitry.

This is a film for those who love democracy -- the victory of what Jefferson called the "aristocracy of talent" over the dead weight of the past. You will be swept up in this marvelous adventure, this heroic tale that recounts the American and the French revolutions at their best. This film is the LIFE, not the letter -- as it is presented in text books. Hurray for the American revolution and the French revolution and remember that their goal was wit and delight and love -- not advancement as an end in itself. The French cinema has presented this film in such a lovely, believable, natural manner. Thank you to them. Wonderful, humane acting graces a noble subject.

Perhaps I am biased but I absolutely love the film partly because I think there is no other actor in the world that can portray Beaumarchais the way Luchini does.The film is not meant to be completely biographical but it's enough to capture the essence of Beaumarchais. I don't think it is possible to make a film on the whole entire life of Beaumarchais, it would last a lifetime and would have been superficial. Capturing a slice of his life is hard enough but done very well in this film in a very light-hearted way.Other types of attempts to tell the story of Beaumarchais would probably be plastic.An excellent performance by Fabrice Luchini!

Maybe, you have to be French-speaking to really appreciate the movie but it is simply wonderful. All the wit of Beaumarchais through the words of Guitry: what can you ask for more. And Fabrice Luchini is simply wonderful. I am sure that Sacha Guitry would have appreciated seeing the movie made from his « inédit ». To been seen regularly or whenever you feel blue.