My Best Friend (Mon meilleur ami) (2006)

75% of critics liked it
(87 reviews)
66% of users liked it
(9,428 ratings)

A businessman tries to belatedly learn the fine art of friendship in this comedy from French filmmaker Patrice Leconte. François (Daniel Auteuil) is an antique dealer who runs an upscale shop with his business partner, Catherine (Julie Gayet). François is a gently ruthless trader who will do nearly… More A businessman tries to belatedly learn the fine art of friendship in this comedy from French filmmaker Patrice Leconte. François (Daniel Auteuil) is an antique dealer who runs an upscale shop with his business partner, Catherine (Julie Gayet). François is a gently ruthless trader who will do nearly anything to make a deal, and when Catherine throws him a birthday party, someone points out that all the guests are business associates, not personal friends. While François protests that he does indeed have friends, Catherine calls him on it and makes him a deal -- if he can produce his best friend within ten days, he'll be allowed to keep a valuable vase he recently found for the shop, but if not, the vase will belong to her. François agrees to the challenge, but while going through his address book, he begins to realize he really doesn't have any especially close friends. Over the course of several days, François keeps running into Bruno (Dany Boon), a gregarious and friendly taxi driver, and while Bruno's personality rubs François the wrong way, he notices that the cabbie has a way of making (most) people like him. Eager to win his bet with Catherine, François recruits Bruno to give him a crash course in making friends and influencing people, hoping to find a buddy before his deadline. Mon Meilleur Ami (aka My Best Friend) received its North American premiere at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Play Trailer

Rating, Runtime: PG-13, 1 hr. 34 min.
Directed By: Patrice Leconte
Written By: Jerome Tonnerre
Genres: Drama, Art House & International, Comedy

In Theaters: Jul 27, 2007 Wide
On DVD: Oct 16, 2007
Studio: IFC Films

Critic Reviews

Christy Lemire, Associated Press
Patrice Leconte has taken a story about male friendship, in all its posturing and potential vulnerability, and turned it into a light, smart, crowd-pleasing comedy.
Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter
One looks to Leconte for some of the finest, most sophisticated and compassionate filmmaking coming out of France, not for a situation comedy.
David Edelstein, New York Magazine
It's better when it's threatening, but Leconte knows his audience.
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel
A sweetly surprising treatise on friendship.
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
[Director] Leconte and his perfectly suited stars have given us one of those light comedies that carry a world of lovely weight.
Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle
As an alleged witty comedy of humanistic charm, it sags in both, thanks to unfunny predicaments and a phony plot.
Marlow Stern, Manhattan Movie Magazine
Leconte has crafted an at once thoughtful, engaging, lighthearted, and melancholic entertainment about loneliness and friendship
Cherryl Dawson and Leigh Ann Palone, TheMovieChicks.com
This is a movie that sneaks up on you and grabs your heart before you know it. I would want to watch it with my best friend.
Don Willmott, Filmcritic.com
French though it may be, My Best Friend effectively addresses what is a universal human condition.
Robert Roten, Laramie Movie Scope
It isn't always believable, but it is entertaining and funny, with an edge to it.
Brett McCracken, Christianity Today
A wonderful, rare film that portrays one of the most under-represented but universal human neuroses: the desire for friendship or platonic love.
Prairie Miller, Long Island Press
Questions the negative, indeed emotionally incapacitating influences that the overriding nature of interaction today - commercial relationships between human beings - is having on genuine human bonding.
Kam Williams, Black Star News
A satisfying, cinematic masterpiece with an invaluable message about the meaning of real relating.
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)
Few films so directly address the question of friendship, the nature of friendship, and, most of all, the illusion that our acquaintances and our friends are the same thing.
Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve
Daniel Auteuil is reliable as usual.
Peter Bradshaw, Guardian [UK]
You might well find it very silly, but it grew on me, and it's certainly based on an interesting premise.

Read all 16 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Randy T

I was drawn in by Julie Gayet, uplifted by Dany Boon and mesmerized by Daniel Auteuil. Delightful and light-hearted.
Nicki M

Enjoyable French comedy. Struck a chord with me - I could relate to the socially awkward main character!
Gordon A

Intriguing premise is stretched too far. The antisocial lead isn't believably friendless and the sociable friend's anxieties contrived.
Ross C

Corny contemporary French take on a classic Dickens tale. Auteuil's Scrooge-like character has to prove he's capable of having a best friend in this humorous easy-watching movie.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]In "My Best Friend," Francois Coste(Daniel Auteuil), divorced with a grown a daughter, Louise(Julie Durand), is an antiques dealer who on impulse purchases an expensive vase at auction. Alarmed at this, his business partner, Catherine(Julie Gayet), bets… More
[font=Century Gothic]In "My Best Friend," Francois Coste(Daniel Auteuil), divorced with a grown a daughter, Louise(Julie Durand), is an antiques dealer who on impulse purchases an expensive vase at auction. Alarmed at this, his business partner, Catherine(Julie Gayet), bets him the vase that he does not have any friends and that to win the bet he must produce his best friend by the end of the month, in ten days' time. But Francois is stumped until a garrulous, know-it-all cab driver, Bruno(Dany Boon), comes to his rescue...[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]All of which cannot but help remind me of the greatly superior "Un Coeur en Hiver" which put Daniel Auteuil on the map playing an emotionally cold businessman. Not only that but that movie proved with subtlety that such a person is sometimes necessary. Occasionally unwatchable, "My Best Friend" takes the heavy-handed approach in its take on friendship with an absolutely ludricrous climax.(Director Patrice Leconte should certainly know better since he made the exquisitely wonderful "Man on the Train" about a unique friendship.) Catherine is cruel in making the bet and this is proof that workplace interventions are never a good idea since business relationships are different from friendships. There is nothing wrong with how Bruno and Francois carry themselves, since they have the perfect personalities for their chosen professions.[/font]
William G

Enjoyable trifle overstays its welcome with live-television conclusion.
alan j

A real snoozefest..Auteuil portrays a very unlikeable character, and worse yet, you still feel the same at the end of the film. Script is a bit predictable and pedestrian, but the female actresses are sexy (this is a french movie of course). Dany Boon's performance is worth… More
A real snoozefest..Auteuil portrays a very unlikeable character, and worse yet, you still feel the same at the end of the film. Script is a bit predictable and pedestrian, but the female actresses are sexy (this is a french movie of course). Dany Boon's performance is worth noting and if you see this movie, its the one bright spot.
nefnie l

If you died tomorrow, would anyone be at your funeral? One man finds out the terrible truth that he doesn't have anyone who really likes him. I found his journey to not only find a friend, but learn how to be a friend, heartwarming.
Dimitris S

Apart from the Bronzes sequels,I suppose this tricky little film by Leconte is the bottom line of his drowsiness.Boon is drastically superior even towards Auteuil,torn between his comedic clasp and the ludicrous rants.Incorrigible events,a typical demagogy in the likes of a typical… More
Apart from the Bronzes sequels,I suppose this tricky little film by Leconte is the bottom line of his drowsiness.Boon is drastically superior even towards Auteuil,torn between his comedic clasp and the ludicrous rants.Incorrigible events,a typical demagogy in the likes of a typical Hollywood mannerism.