Hate to read? Don’t see this movie

This movie is designed for those who are educated, urban, and middle class. People in the country won’t watch it; the urban poor will stay the hell away from it. Why? It’s a film about a writer—and a French one at that. Also it has subtitles. As everyone in marketing knows, the urban poor and country folk are tired of reading all of the time. So, Molière is a movie for a person who is happy to read subtitles and to see a story about a writer—and such a person is usually educated, urban, and in the middle class. But what this ideal person is really getting from this movie is nothing more than an escape from the present into a picturesque past of horse-drawn carriages, dirt roads, thick silver coins, fat candle sticks, glamorous salons, dedicated servants, and large fireplaces in large palaces. What else but an escape could you expect from a movie that speculates about what might have happened in a brief and historically blank period of time in Molière’s life? Because it’s a pure fantasy, the film offers the viewer no education; because it’s not a work of art, it offers the viewer’s soul no enrichment. Molière might be about an artist, but it is certainly not made by one (the director Laurent Tirard). In sum, the movie provides its ideal viewer (urban, educated, middle class) a quick break from the dullness of whatever is happening in his/her now. For a similar type of relief, the urban poor and country folks watch Live Free or Die Hard.

MOLIÉRE DIR. LAURENT TIRARD | RATED PG-13 | AT SELECT THEATERS IN LA