The Second Act (Le Deuxième Acte)

The latest film from the fertile, prolific mind and pen of Quentin Dupieux is a neat companion to his 2023 Yannick. In that theatregoer takes over a show, he’s disappointed with.

Here its film within a film as four actors David (Louis Garrel), Willy (Raphaël Quenard), Florence (Léa Seydoux) and Guillaume (Vincent Lindon) who variously play their characters and themselves as filming and frustrations with the film, script and their personalities start to play out and intertwine.

The introduction is a long take with David and Willy discussing how to deal with a tricky situation regarding Florence who has become obsessed with David. He though has no interest and wants to offload her onto Willy. The conversation becomes heated and when Willy makes some non-PC remarks, David notes they are being filmed.

This is followed by Florence and Guillaume, daughter and father driving to meet David. This breaks down as Lindon stops midway to walk out of the film because he’s tired of ‘silly films’ prompting a discussion with Seydoux about the technique of acting and film.

Having established that the film is going to be anything other than straightforward Dupieux shifts the setting to an isolated restaurant where the four are meeting to eat. Where another character is introduced; a very nervous extra Stéphane (Manuel Guillot) who can’t pour a glass of wine.

With all that set up Dupieux begins satirising the industry: the mechanics involved via the immediate protagonists, extending to managers, family, and rampant egos. Disturbingly and ominously there’s an AI element too.

For the most part its very entertaining and quite funny – the exchange between Seydoux and her daughter is priceless - with the actors having plenty of juicy dialogue to play with and possibly get stuff off their own chests too.

At 80 minutes this is one of Dupieux’s longer films and maybe on this occasion could have benefited from being a mite shorter. It begins to flag towards the end as it takes on a darker hue fixing on the performers’ egos with the film-set pecking order cruelly exposed.

The Second Act is now available on Digital Platforms. Distributed by Signature Entertainment