Daphné (Alice Isaaz), a young book editor from Paris, takes her partner Frederic (Bastien Bouillon) to her parents country house in Brittany following the failure of his novel. He part-blames that failure on famed critic Jean-Michel Rouche (Fabrice Luchini), who ran out of time to review the book on his popular TV show. In the nearest town lies the “Library of Refused Books”, a collection of unpublished manuscripts, and Daphné visits, hoping to come across a future bestseller, and she finds "The Last Hours of a Love Story" by Henri Pick. Seeing it's potential, she sets about acquiring the rights.
She finds that Pick has been dead for some years, but his widow Madeleine (Josiane Stoléru) and daughter Joséphine (Camille Cottin) are shocked by the idea that the pizza chef they knew could have been a writer. This charming backstory adds to the book's appeal and it becomes a bestseller.
Rouche is the fly in this literary ointment, verbally attacking Madeleine on screen, accusing her of lying about the authorship of the novel. He is sacked from his presenting job, the incident precipitates the breakup of his marriage, and he has a lot of time on his hands, and a grievance to nurse. He sets out to find the real author and why Pick was chosen as a cover, with the, initially reluctant, help of Joséphine.
It's a lot of fun to watch, often very funny, a gentle detective story with a love interest and plenty of charm. The writers clearly had a great time coming up with unpublishable titles for the library, "Masturbation and Sushi" being the most memorable. There's a satirical edge too, highlighting the absurdity of the French literary scene, the overcrowded market and the dubious means used to sell books to a gullible public. If the solution to the mystery feels like a let down, a little too contrived, it still succeeds in hitting the target of literary pretension. Great entertainment.
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