Alibi.com (2017)

A French farce about a man who runs a company manufacturing alibis for philandering clients, Alibi.com arrives with modest ambitions and meets most of them. Grégory Van Huffel builds a thriving enterprise on the premise that everyone lies, then falls for a lawyer who considers honesty the highest virtue. The machinery of deception grinds on from there, producing mistaken identities, a hotel in Cannes, and a father-in-law who turns out to be a paying customer. It is a comedy of embarrassment, executed with the brisk efficiency of a well-run small business. The film approaches its subject with no stated thesis about anything.

The ensemble reflects contemporary French casting habits without making a spectacle of them. Actors of North African descent appear in prominent supporting roles, and the film treats this as unremarkable, which is the correct posture for a comedy that has no interest in sociology. Race is never raised as a subject and never becomes a source of commentary. The female lead practices law and is granted a personality, though the screenplay does not pause to interrogate the gender order on her behalf. No LGBTQ+ characters or themes are developed. The environment goes unmentioned. The alibi agency is simply a business, and the film regards its profits with approval. Nobody discusses their body, their neurology, or the historical record.

What remains is a genial exercise in plot mechanics, and the classification reflects that. The cultural awareness on display is incidental, a byproduct of casting from a modern French talent pool. The film wants to make us laugh at men who lie, and it does so without a sermon, a cause, or a message. That restraint is its own quiet achievement, though not one the framework has any reason to reward. A remake followed in Italy. The original stands as a modest, well-behaved commercial object, and we record it as such.