Your Company
 

La Cage aux Folles(La Cage aux folles)

✭ ✭ ✭   Read critic reviews

France, Italy · 1978
Rated R · 1h 32m
Director Édouard Molinaro
Starring Ugo Tognazzi, Michel Serrault, Claire Maurier, Michel Galabru
Genre Comedy

Two gay men living in St. Tropez have their lives turned upside down when their son announces he is getting married to the daughter of a conservative politician. Their son convinces them to conceal their lifestyle and their ownership of the drag club downstairs when the fiancée and her parents come for dinner.

Stream La Cage aux Folles

What are people saying?

What are critics saying?

75

TV Guide Magazine by

In less assured hands, this could have wound up as a disaster, but director Edouard Molinaro was skillfully able to film the long-running play and wring every drop of humor from it.

75

Slant Magazine by Chris Cabin

Though its politics are still quite progressive, La Cage aux Folles is ultimately a work of classicism, crafted with precision and efficiently paced.

80

CineVue by Christopher Machell

Later remade as The Bird Cage, this first adaptation of Jean Poiret’s play is as moving as it is hilarious in its depiction of moral hypocrisy and familial love.

50

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

It’s funny in a coarse, obvious way, and it probably would have been a laugh riot had director Edouard Molinaro possessed even an elementary sense of timing. Still, it’s not very honorable: this is one of those sitcoms, like The Jeffersons, that “explain” a minority to middle-class audiences by making their members cute, cuddly, and harmlessly eccentric.

88

LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen

The fabulous 1970s fashions don’t hold up too well, but what still resonates is the movie’s empathetic attention to what it’s like if your sexual identity doesn’t neatly fit into traditional norms.

60

The Dissolve by Keith Phipps

Without challenging viewers’ notions of how gay men behave, the film shamed its homophobic characters while showing a loving family headed by longtime same-sex partners who are embraced by their community—boas, makeup, and all. Albin and Renato were onto something. It was the rest of the world’s job to catch up.

40

Empire by Kim Newman

Despite delicate performances, the lead characters never escape stereotype, and the relationship between them, which should be the emotional heart of the movie, never becomes remotely convincing even on an I Love Lucy level.

88

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

This is basically the first sitcom in drag, and the comic turns in the plot are achieved with such clockwork timing that sometimes we're laughing at what's funny and sometimes we're just laughing at the movie's sheer comic invention. This is a great time at the movies.

40

The New York Times by Vincent Canby

La Cage aux Folles is naughty in the way of comedies that pretend to be sophisticated but actually serve to reinforce the most popular conventions and most witless stereotypes.

Users who liked this film also liked