A charming culture clash comedy set in Los Angeles, “The Valet” is worthy of its predecessor, French director Francis Veber’s 2007 farce of the same title.
Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez, now best known as the music teacher in last year’s best picture Oscar winner “CODA,” gets to show off his comic chops and timing as Antonio, an unpretentious valet in Beverly Hills. He enjoys the brief time he gets to drive fancy cars before returning the keys and riding a bike home, first picking up his teenage son from school. A divorced dad who still pines for his ex, Antonio shares a house with his outgoing mother, played by veteran actress Carmen Salinas who died last year. There’s nothing about his hard working, simple life that even comes close to glamour.
But in true romcom fashion, his world collides with movie star Olivia Allan (Samara Weaving) and soon they’re an unlikely pair who grow to genuinely like one another. Olivia is secretly seeing a married guy, Vincent Royce (Max Greenfield) and hating herself for it. She also has a big movie coming out and can’t afford bad publicity. Right after she breaks off her affair with Vincent, the paparazzi snap a photo of the two arguing and hapless Antonio gets accidentally caught between them. With Vincent’s marriage and business on the line, and with Olivia’s prestigious movie about Amelia Earhart about to open, both have a motive to agree to Vincent’s lawyer’s scheme to pay Antonio to pretend that he’s really Olivia’s new beau.
Is it preposterous? Of course. But director Richard Wong has a breezy comic touch and the entire cast is lively and likable, especially Derbez and Weaving. The not-as-shallow-as-she-seems Olivia is drawn to the love in Antonio’s warm family life, not to mention the abundant Mexican food, and even shows up to his son’s high school production of “Romeo and Juliet." Antonio suddenly sees himself in an unfamiliar light: he’s newly attractive to his ex-wife and popular with the team of fellow valets.
"The Valet” is a winning romcom in the reliable tradition of taking two people from wildly different backgrounds and allowing them to recognize the pleasures in each other’s worlds — and become better people for it.
