100 minutes
9/27/1989
Joey Wellman, an American cartoonist from Cleveland now largely forgotten at home, visits France with his partner Lena to attend an exhibition in Paris about the comic strip (bande dessinée) which features his work. He also hopes to be reconciled with his daughter Elsie who has been a student in Paris for two years, in flight from the American culture of which she sees her father as a typical example. Elsie is naively infatuated with French literature, and is trying to secure an introduction to the brilliant university professor Christian Gauthier, an expert on Flaubert but also an enthusiast for comic books. The meeting of father and daughter goes badly, but Elsie is persuaded to join Joey and Lena for the weekend at the country house of Gauthier's mother, Isabelle. During a comic-themed masquerade party, all of the characters are made to reconsider their present and past relationships.
Laura Benson
as Elsie Wellman
Adolph Green
as Joey Wellman
Linda Lavin
as Lena Apthrop
Gérard Depardieu
as Christian Gauthier
Geraldine Chaplin
as Terry Amstrong
François-Eric Gendron
as Lionel Cohn-Martin
Georges Fricker
as Roxy Darcel
John Ashton
as Harry Dempsey
Caroline Silhol
as Dora Dempsey
Micheline Presle
as Isabelle Gauthier
Patrick Bonnel
as Le boucher
Charlotte Bonnet
as La femme chauffeur de taxi
Isabelle Wolfe
as Laureline
Jean-Marc Cozic
as Tintin
Tony Dias
as Valentina
Guillaume Farny
as Bateman
Alain Fromager
as L'étudiant dans le bureau de Gauthier
Peter Hudson
as Le Spectre
Raphaëline Goupilleau
as L'étudiante dans le bureau de Gauthier
Isabelle Habiague
as La jeune femme qui chante
Ludivine Sagnier
as La petite fille de la place du village
Jacques Le Servot
as Spirit
Agnès Seelinger
as La domestique du manoir
Gisèle Soban
as Elektra
Anne Teyssèdre
as La jeune femme dans le bureau de Gauthier
Isabelle Turpault
as Catwoman
Michel Weinstadt
as Corto Maltese
Abbes Zahmani
as Le Concombre Masqué
Lucienne Hamon
as Mme Roget
Catherine Arditi
as La boulangère
Anne Roussel
as La jeune femme fatiguée
Jean Champion
as Le chauffeur de taxi
Emmanuelle Chaulet
as La secrétaire de Gauthier
Pierre Decazes
as Le garagiste
Nicolas Trong
as Le jeune homme dans l'avion
Françoise Bertin
as La cliente de la marchande de légumes