Seventeenth-century playwright Jean-Baptiste Molière went missing for a few months in his early 20s, and this French comedy-drama playfully imagines how he might have spent the time.
Bailed out of a pauper’s prison, the struggling artist is forced to ghost-write love letters for the pompous, deluded M. Jourdain (Luchini) while posing as his priest. But while Jourdain is lavishing his attention on a vain Marquise, his own wife is left open to the charms of the talented wordsmith - and so an amusing farcical romance ensues.
It’s overlong and self-indulgent, but Romain Duris puts in a spirited performance as the mischievous lover.