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Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Play trailer 1:27 Poster for Get Out Your Handkerchiefs R Released Dec 17, 1978 1h 48m Comedy Play Trailer Watchlist
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83% Tomatometer 18 Reviews 75% Popcornmeter 1,000+ Ratings
Solange (Carole Laure) is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul (Gérard Depardieu), makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.

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Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

Critics Reviews

View All (18) Critics Reviews
Robert Abele Los Angeles Times "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" may not shock the way it once did, but it remains the purest expression of Blier's comic métier, treating naughty ideas with the straightest of faces. Apr 17, 2019 Full Review Elliott Stein Film Comment Magazine [Blier's] entertaining movie starts uneasily, builds carefully, and ends beautifully. Rated: 3/4 Dec 12, 2017 Full Review Tom Huhn Washington Blade While it is without a doubt fresh, original, and quite funny, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs does not succeed as the rich and meaningful depiction of life it claims to be. May 18, 2022 Full Review Robin Clifford Reeling Reviews will leave it to you to enjoy this absurdist and silly, goofy and fun little comedy as it unfolds. The extras on the blu-ray are scant, at best. Rated: B+ Sep 16, 2019 Full Review Laura Clifford Reeling Reviews Blier's writing is sharp, his use of space mined for its comedic potential, his casting meticulous, especially in his return pairing of Depardieu and Dewaere whose bromance here is the film's highlight. Rated: B Sep 16, 2019 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy Often problematic (particularly during the second half) but also marked by scintillating dialogue and splendid performances. Rated: 3/4 Aug 31, 2019 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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Audience Member First, I must start by stating that I watched this movie in French without English subtitles so although I caught the overall gist of the movie, some of the subtler nuances I may have missed. It was funny, audacious and clever, but it started to go down the road of the downright bizarre about 2/3 of the way through. The themes and messaging were all over the place. Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review eric b Bertrand Blier's "Get Out Your Handkerchiefs" (winner of 1978's Best Foreign Film Oscar) is unavoidably classified as a "sex comedy," but it's not nearly as crass as that label's connotation. This is highly watchable as foreign-language films go, and is quite funny at times. However, it doesn't seem to get circulated much today, which is probably because it has a controversial plot involving consensual sex with a minor. Raoul (Gerard Depardieu, back in his attractive heyday) is married to Solange (Carole Laure, who apparently is better known as a singer than an actress). Solange has turned eternally glum and listless, and spends most of her time aimlessly knitting (she often does this topless, which is a welcome bonus). Raoul is so passionately in love that he puts Solange's happiness above his own, and he decides that maybe a change in partners will cure her doldrums. So, as the film opens, he casually selects a stranger in a restaurant (Patrick Dewaere, who previously co-starred with Depardieu in Blier's "Going Places") to become Solange's lover. He essentially engineers their coupling, and Solange passively goes along with the swap. How very French, no? Solange's spirits don't lift much as her new relationship grows, but the two men become friends in laboring together to nurture her. Eventually, the trio end up working at a summer boys camp, which leads to meeting a precocious lad (he's about 14) who manages to revive Solange more than the adult men could. Uh oh, bring on the morality police. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A gentler, warmer tale in comparison with Les Valseuses, this is a pointed, funny and engaging film slightly reminiscent of 'Harold & Maude'. All the cast are great and the ending perfect. Chapeau! Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/25/23 Full Review Audience Member Oscar's BEST FOREIGN PICTURE crowner from French director/writer Bertrand Blier, whose cannon I have been contacted for the first time. In a straightforward opening, the movie starts bluntly as a ménage-à-trois between a married couple Raoul (Depardieu) and Solange (Laure) and a stranger in the restaurant Stéphane (Dewaere), and proceeds along the romanticized "I am willing to do anything for the woman I love" commitment, in order to woo a sullen and fainting spells struck Solange, the two men pull out all their skills to earn Solange's smile but of no avail, the banters and collisions between Raoul and Stéphane spark adequate laughters in the first half of the picture (propelled by the exploitation of Laure's nudity and a shoehorned sidekick played by the one-of-the-kind Serrault), but two men is insatiable for Solange, who is just knitting and scrubbing all day (the recurring sweaters she knitted for various characters in the movie is too obtrusive to overlook), silently vexed by her sterility. In the second half, the three encounter a precocious 13-year-old Christian (Riton) in a summer camp, whose high IQ combines a angelic appearance fills the hole of Solange's heart and her surging maternal rush, there are explicit scenes here are rather PG-13 vis-à-vis the underage Riton, but no alarmist needed since it is made of France and now is 21st century, but a sure thing is films like this are beyond doubt to receive the honor in the Oscar race now as 35 years ago, let's wait and see how BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR (2013) will pan out. Anyhow, the dissolution of the trio is inevitable and Solange's comeuppance has been crafted out of a farcical yet remarkable fulfillment, considering how she is objectified as a dumb chick in the beginning, men and women are truly two species living in their lone realms where has no convergence at the end of the road. The cast is rather personable, however there is a nostalgic sigh to see Depardieu in his exuberant youth with visible chin frame and square figure; and uncannily, the late Dewaere died of a mysterious suicide when he was 35 (in 1982) like his idol in the film, Mozart, but the two are plain goofy and comical with their own tact in sharing the same woman. Laure holds together an indecipherable image with her earthly body and distant beauty, Riton is an outstanding discovery given his demanding task to seduce a lady twice his age. Georges Delerue's winsome score is catchy and plays charmingly with the narrative arc. In a nutshell, GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS' advanced value of modern relationship and extensive pluck in digging into a taboo subject is recommendable and not fades away with the consumption of time. Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/05/23 Full Review Audience Member As Smart as it is Crazy... Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Audience Member One of the most ridiculusly funny and hilarious comedy of ages !! Storyline is very very 'frenh'(!), trust me when I say this! Wonderful to watch.. simply great and abstruct movie. Acting and dialogues were so great.. can't but just laughing out loudly vibrating the whole room!! Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/22/23 Full Review Read all reviews
Get Out Your Handkerchiefs

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Cast & Crew

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Movie Info

Synopsis Solange (Carole Laure) is seriously depressed, and her kindhearted husband, Raoul (Gérard Depardieu), makes it his mission to cure her doldrums. After many failed attempts to cheer her up, Raoul hits upon a possible solution: find his wife a lover. Unfortunately, his choice, Stéphane (Patrick Dewaere), proves to be just as ineffectual in restoring her flagging spirits. In the end, the gorgeous Solange finds her own, highly problematic tonic to her troubles in the form of a 13-year-old boy.
Director
Bertrand Blier
Distributor
New Line Cinema
Rating
R
Genre
Comedy
Original Language
Canadian French
Release Date (Theaters)
Dec 17, 1978, Original
Release Date (Streaming)
Aug 26, 2019
Runtime
1h 48m
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