A Perfect Plan

The French have a particular talent for taking a premise that would look absolutely psychotic on paper and polishing it until it shines like a Gallic gemstone. Take the "marriage curse." In most families, a curse involves a genetic predisposition for bad knees or a tendency to talk too loudly at funerals. In Isabelle’s family, the curse is far more cinematic: every first marriage ends in a catastrophic divorce, while the second marriage is pure bliss. It’s the kind of high-concept nonsense that fueled the mid-budget rom-com boom of the early 2010s, and 2012’s A Perfect Plan (originally Un plan parfait) leans into that absurdity with a passport full of stamps and a very game Diane Kruger.

I watched this on a Tuesday night while trying to fold a fitted sheet—I eventually gave up on the sheet, threw it in a heap, and let the movie's chaotic energy take over my living room.

The Art of the Strategic Disaster

The plot is a sprint. To bypass the family curse and marry her long-term boyfriend Pierre (Robert Plagnol), Isabelle (Diane Kruger) decides she needs a "sacrificial" first husband. The plan is simple: fly to Copenhagen, marry a stranger, divorce him immediately, and head back to her perfect life. But when her initial target fails to show, she’s forced to pivot to the nearest available warm body. Enter Jean-Yves, played by Dany Boon, a man who looks like he’s perpetually recovering from a mild electrical shock.

Dany Boon is a titan of French comedy—his Welcome to the Sticks (2008) is basically the Avengers: Endgame of French box office history—and he brings a specific, exasperating charm here. Jean-Yves is a travel writer for the Rough Guides, a man who eats sheep eyeballs in Kenya and sings karaoke in Moscow with the same oblivious enthusiasm. He is the polar opposite of the sleek, sophisticated Isabelle. Watching Diane Kruger—an actress I usually associate with the icy tension of Inglourious Basterds or the poise of Troy—try to seduce a man she clearly finds repulsive is the engine that drives the first hour. She’s surprisingly great at physical comedy, throwing herself into the "clumsy seductress" role with a commitment that feels almost athletic.

A Relic of the Glossy Globetrotter Era

Looking back from our current era of green-screened backgrounds and "Volume" stages, there’s something genuinely refreshing about the production value here. Director Pascal Chaumeil, who previously directed the hit Heartbreaker (starring Romain Duris), clearly had a massive budget to play with—reportedly around €26 million. That’s a staggering amount for a European romantic comedy, and you see every cent on the screen.

The film moves from the crisp, cool blues of Denmark to the sun-baked, dusty oranges of Kenya, and eventually to a snowy, neon-lit Moscow. It captures that specific 2012 aesthetic: high-contrast digital cinematography (Glynn Speeckaert) and a "world-is-your-playground" vibe that felt aspirational before the world got a lot smaller. The flight to Kenya alone features a sequence involving a bush pilot and a localized storm that feels more like an action movie than a meet-cute. This was the tail end of the era where studios believed a rom-com needed to be a "spectacle" to compete with the rising tide of franchises, and while the plot is thin, the scenery is gorgeous.

Why This One Stayed in the Shadows

Despite the star power and the travelogue budget, A Perfect Plan never quite became the international crossover hit the producers were clearly aiming for. It’s a bit of a "forgotten oddity" because it sits in an awkward middle ground. It’s too broad and slapstick-heavy for the subtitle-loving art-house crowd, yet too "French" in its sensibilities for the mainstream American audience who usually prefer their rom-coms set in a New York advertising agency.

There’s also the matter of the humor’s "hit-to-miss" ratio. At times, the film’s reliance on Jean-Yves being an insufferable nuisance wears thin. There is a dental surgery scene involving a pair of pliers and a lot of screaming that I found physically painful to watch, though my French neighbor once told me it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen. Comedy is, of course, the most subjective of genres. The film also features a subplot with Isabelle’s sister Corinne (Alice Pol) and her husband Patrick (Jonathan Cohen) that feels like it belongs in a different, much smaller movie. It’s funny, but it distracts from the central "will-they-won't-they-please-just-stop-screaming" dynamic of the leads.

Apparently, the production was quite the logistical nightmare. Shooting in the Maasai Mara meant the cast and crew were often dealing with actual wildlife while trying to hit their marks. There’s a scene where a lion approaches their vehicle, and while it’s played for laughs, the tension on Diane Kruger’s face looks a little too real to be purely acting. It’s those moments—where the artifice of the rom-com meets the unpredictability of a travelogue—that make this worth a look.

A Perfect Plan is a loud, colorful, and occasionally exhausting farce that succeeds primarily because its lead actors are so committed to the bit. It’s a fascinating snapshot of a time when European cinema was trying to beat Hollywood at its own high-gloss game. While the "marriage curse" premise eventually gives way to the predictable beats of the genre, the journey there is weird enough to justify the runtime. If you’re in the mood for some 2012-era escapism and want to see Diane Kruger lose her mind in the middle of a Russian dance club, this is your ticket.

It’s the cinematic equivalent of a high-end airport novel: you know exactly how it ends, but the pictures on the cover are pretty enough to keep you turning the pages until your flight lands.