Ridicule

Ridicule (1996) is a French period comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Director Patrice Leconte set it at the court of Louis XVI in 1780 Versailles and built the whole film around one proposition: that a well-aimed witticism killed careers faster than a duel, and a failed one ended them just the same.

Grégor de Ponceludon, played by Charles Berling, arrives from the provinces with an urgent practical problem — marshland on his estate is killing people, and he needs the king's money to drain it. Between him and the king stands every courtier who measures status in laughs. Jean Rochefort plays the aristocrat who teaches him the rules; Fanny Ardant is the widow who makes those rules complicated. The film's particular pleasure is watching a man who started knowing nothing about wit get genuinely good at it — and then discover what that costs.

The film was up for four Academy Awards, including Best Foreign Language Film, and its portrait of a society where language is the only currency that matters hasn't dated at all. Stream Ridicule (1996) online on iFILM.