Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when the son of one of the men announces he is getting married. They try to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.
La Cage aux Folles is a landmark comedy that earns its reputation primarily through its performances and its genuinely groundbreaking premise for 1978. Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault deliver wonderfully layered, warm performances — Serrault's Albin in particular is a tour de force of comic timing and surprising emotional depth. The plot is a well-constructed farce built on escalating misunderstandings, though it follows fairly conventional comedic mechanics once the premise is established. Cinematography is functional and stagy, reflecting its theatrical origins without much visual ambition. Its novelty is real and significant: presenting gay characters with genuine sympathy, humor, and humanity at a time when mainstream cinema rarely did so was genuinely radical, and its specific blend of farce and heart remains distinctive. The ending is satisfying but somewhat rushed and conventionally tidy for what came before it.