10/07/2006

Shooting ended Friday on Le prix à payer (lit. "The Price to Pay"), the second feature by Alexandra Leclère, a caustic comedy starring Nathalie Baye, Christian Clavier, Gérard Lanvin, Géraldine Pailhas and Patrick Chesnais.

After the success of her first film, Me and My Sister (released in December 2004) – which took in €1.4m at the French box office – this time around the director has chosen to explore relations of love and hate between a wealthy couple, with money acting as a trigger for insinuation and resentment.

The film depicts Jean-Pierre Ménard (Clavier), a rich Parisian businessman who has everything he needs to be happy – a beautiful woman, Odile (Baye), a private hotel in a wealthy area in the capital and a car driven by a chauffeur (Gérard Lanvin). But for several years his wife and him have been sleeping apart and Jean-Pierre feels very lonely.

A little lost, he confides in his chauffeur who also has problems with his partner (Pailhas). A fine connoisseur of women, the chauffeur gives unlucky advice to his boss who takes it literally. He steals his wife’s credit card in the middle of the night and sets down a new rule: "No Fuck! No money!". How will his wife (whose lover is played by Patrick Chesnais) react? Give in, revolt? What is the real price of love?

Produced by Philippe Godeau for Pan Européenne, Le prix à payer has a budget of €11.7m. The 47-day shoot in and around Paris began on April 24.

Pan Européenne Edition will distribute the film in France in April 2007 and Wild Bunch will handle international sales.

(Translated from French)