Grand Role, Le

Maurice and his three pals are all struggling to find work as actors in Paris, where the roles for a motley quartet of Jewish thespians are, to put it mildly, rather limited. In fact, we first discover them scraping by doing foreign-language voiceovers. But this charming French comedy springs into action when the friends learn that a famous Hollywood movie director is arriving to film his adaptation of The Merchant of Venice...in Yiddish. Maurice (Stéphane Freiss) first must convince the director that he is the perfect Shylock (his agent coaches him before the audition, "Come dressed as a Jew!"). His buddies are equally intent on landing roles, and their preparations are hilarious. But what starts as a delightful ensemble farce takes on a new dimension when Maurice’s beloved wife Perla (Bérénice Bejo) suddenly becomes gravely ill. Like the hero of Good Bye, Lenin! (who can’t bear to break bad news to his suffering mother), Maurice decides he must convince his wife, with the collusion of his friends, that he has actually landed the starring role. And that’s when Le Grand Rôle earns its title. For Maurice, pulling off the ruse for the sake of love will be the performance of a lifetime in this comedy with tears. Marin County’s own Peter Coyote plays the deliciously self-important director Rudolph Grichenberg, whose earnest wish to make a high-minded film in an obscure language spoofs at least two current Hollywood grandees. The quartet of friends who collude in the grand deception make a marvelous ensemble.