I’ve only seen one other Quentin Dupieux film, which is Rubber, a terrible film. He released other films since then, a few of those garnering better reviews both in this site and others. This is why I chose to watch and write about Incredible But True which, for the most part, delivers on its’ title’s promise. The film’s first premise involves a bougie middle aged couple, Alan (Alan Chabat) and Marie (Lea Drucker). They but a house with a basement that leads to an identical house. The thing about staying in the second house is that going down to it causes the traveler change. Specifically, with every visit, they become three days younger.

Incredible makes its premise exciting by showing that maybe the couple are in the real house or the duplicate one. Alain and Marie also learn more house rules as they go along. Because there’s got to be a catch to the fountain of youth, right? The film’s second premise, by the way, is equally about vanity and youth. Alain’s douchey boss Gerard (Benoit Magimel) does something in an effort to please his younger wife Jeanne (Anais Demoustier). With that and with another self serving reason, he replaces his regular penis with an electronic one. But it surprises him that no one cares, especially Alain. He cares more about Marie’s increasing vanity than whatever Gerard is doing to himself.

As Incredible follow Alain and the gang, I keep retuning to what I’ve been writing about what I call French boomer comedies. In that subgenre, we see that generation get into hijinks that usually involves technology. Sure, the penis part checks the technological part, but the film elevates itself from the genre by applying this golden sepia tone from it. It subtly gives the impression that it’s telling a contemporary fable. Its sheen may make viewers forget that it’s underusing Demoustier. After Jeanne hits on Alain, her character becomes a non-entity instead of showing us how she deals with Gerard’s penis and what else’s she’s going to occupy herself.

Incredible also focuses too much on its b-plot to flesh out the premise that has more potential to it. It respectably does its best to subvert the three act structure that most films normally have. But the way it does that is by showing its characters through montages instead of just giving us fewer and longer scenes when they can unravel. As I write this though, it all returns to whether or not the actors can help tell a film’s moral lesson, even if those lessons feel old hat. They do, and kudos to Chabat for selling the tragicomedy of watching the few people around him lose it.

Incredible But True is a MUBI exclusive.