Hunting and Gathering (Ensemble, c'est tout—"Together, That's All") is a 2007 film from France directed by Claude Berri.
Philbert (Laurent Stocker) and Franck (Guillaume Canet) are an oddly matched pair of roommates. Philbert is an aristocrat from an Old Money family who runs a little store that sells postcards. Philbert is not quite The Shut-In but he doesn't like dealing with people, so he lets his lodger, Franck, do the shopping and errands. While Philbert is rich and shy, Franck is poor and brashly confident. Franck works as a chef. On the one day a week when the restaurant is closed, Franck visits his elderly grandmother Paulette, who raised him. As the story starts, Paulette has had a fall in her home and is facing the prospect of going to an old folks' home.
Enter Camille (Audrey Tautou), who lives in a tiny attic garret in the same building where Philbert is living in a luxury apartment suite. Camille is stressed out by an unsatisfactory job—she's working as a cleaning lady but hopes to be an artist—and she is struggling with anorexia. Camille invites Philbert up for dinner one evening on a whim, and they become friends. Soon after, when Camille falls seriously ill with the flu, Philbert brings her into his apartment to recuperate. She gets better, but lingers in the apartment, and she and Franck start to clash.
Tropes:
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Franck's displeasure when Philbert brings a woman into the apartment, and all the belligerent sniping that goes on between Camille and Franck afterwards, crackles with tension. It culminates when Camille comes home, finds Franck cavorting with a woman while his boombox plays loud music. She throws his boombox out the window.
- Bleak Abyss Retirement Home: Paulette is horrified at the prospect of getting put in a home and guilt-trips Franck, who gets upset, as he's living hand-to-mouth himself and can't quit his job to look after her. The dilemma is solved when Camille quits her cleaning lady job to look after Paulette.
- Door-Closes Ending: Franck carries Camille into the back room of the restaurant for sex, she having just said something about wanting a baby. The door to the store room swings shut behind them and the film ends.
- Friends with Benefits: After Franck and Camille start having sex, she states this directly, saying that she wants bonking but none of the love stuff. He takes it badly. (And she's just fooling herself.)
- The Ghost: Franck and Paulette argue about his mother and her daughter, how she's not around to help take care of Paulette. Later Franck tells Camille about how his mother abandoned him and later made one abortive effort to reclaim him when he was ten. She never appears onscreen.
- Insistent Terminology: When a doctor identifies her as a cleaning woman, Camille says "surface engineer."
- Moment Killer: Franck has a woman on top of him in his room and is just about to start getting her clothes off when Philbert starts yelling from the kitchen. The tightly-wound Philbert dropped his box filled with antique family crockery, and has a minor meltdown.
- New Year Has Come: All the staff at Franck's restaurant (including Camille, who is temping) toasts the New Year with champagne at midnight.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: At the end of the movie, Camille is admiring a cute baby in the restaurant. She says she wants one of her own. Franck promptly flips her over his shoulder and takes her into the back room.
- Race for Your Love: Played with. Camille races to the train station before Franck leaves, catches him, makes her Anguished Declaration of Love—and he leaves anyway. But he really doesn't, calling her and pretending he's in line at Customs when really he's doubled back and is right behind her.
- Raised by Grandparents: Franck was raised by his grandmother after his mother dropped him off, when he was a baby, and left.
- Shipper on Deck: Paulette meets Camille and proclaims that she's smart and pretty and much better than Franck's previous girlfriend. When Franck reminds her that he and Camille are Just Friends, Paulette says "Pity."
- Stutter Stop: Philbert has a pretty bad stutter, which is one of the reasons he mostly avoids contact with people. It turns out that his stutter goes away when he's onstage, and he becomes a standup comic.
- There Is Only One Bed: Camille goes with Franck to visit his family, and is taken aback when the guest room has only one bed. She blames him for giving his family the impression that they're in a relationship. Surprisingly they do not have sex, although they do have a long Talking in Bed conversation where they get to know each other better.Camille: Only one bed!
Franck: This is not a hotel. - Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Philbert finds a seriously ill Camille in her garret. He carries her downstairs and into his apartment. Franck comes out of his room, sees his roommate carrying a strange woman in his arms...and then Franck goes into the kitchen for something to eat.
