susan granger's review of " the closet " ( miramax films ) in this hilarious french farce , a shy , boring accountant ( daniel auteil ) named francois pignon discovers he's going to be fired from his job at a condom factory . lonely and distraught , he contemplates suicide . but then he runs into belone ( michel aumont ) , an elderly homosexual neighbor , who suggests a " sex discrimination " lawsuit to intimidate management . as evidence , belone concocts provocative photographs of pignon locked in a leather-clad embrace with another man and mails them anonymously to pignon's boss . when the racy snapshots start circulating around the factory , not only does pignon get his job back but he suddenly finds himself the focus of attention as an openly gay man . his lusty supervisor ( michele laroque ) is so intrigued that she wonders if , perhaps , she could change his sexual preferences . even his ex-wife ( alexandra vandernoot ) and indifferent teenage son ( stanislas crevillen ) drop their disdain . but not everyone is enchanted . a mucho macho co-worker felix ( gerard depardieu ) , a self-righteous homophobe , is stunned and repulsed when he's forced by the pr director ( thierry lhermite ) to grovel and court pignon's friendship or risk losing his own job . writer/director francis verber artfully milks the farcical comedy as he dissects the hypocrisy of political correctness , veering off-track only occasionally into pedophilia . daniel auteuil ( " the widow of saint-pierre " ) is delightful - particularly with a blown-up condom perched on his head , riding on a float in a gay pride parade - and gerard depardieu delivers one of his most restrained , and effective , performances . on the granger movie gauge of 1 to 10 , " the closet " is a frankly sexual , adult 8 . it's so clever , in fact , that hollywood is already planning to re-make it in english , like " la cage aux folles . "
