Priceless (Hors de prix) is a 2006 romantic comedy from France directed by Pierre Salvadori.
Jean is a handsome, mild-mannered bartender/waiter at a high-class resort somewhere on the French Riviera. One night a lone customer at the hotel bar insists that Jean come out from behind the bar and drink with him. This leads to Jean, who was already overworked and exhausted, falling asleep on a couch in the lounge.
Enter Irene (Audrey Tautou), a hotel guest and the gorgeous Gold Digger kept woman of a wealthy man named Jacques who is at least twice her age. After her elderly sugar daddy drinks a lot and falls asleep in their room, Irene wanders down to the bar. She mistakes Jean for another wealthy hotel guest. Jean takes her to an unoccupied room and they have sex, followed by Irene sneaking back to her room.
Cut forward a year, and Jean is still working at the resort. Once again Irene and Jacques come to the resort, but this time Jacques asks her to marry him. She spots Jean, who again pretends to be a guest at the resort, and again takes her to an unoccupied room for sex. Only this time they're caught, Jean is fired, Jacques finds out, and Jacques immediately dumps Irene.
Irene, enraged at Jean for not only pretending to be wealthy but costing her a rich husband, leaves him without a backward glance and heads off to Nice, looking for other rich dudes. Jean, who no longer has a job and happens to be desperately in love with Irene, follows her. Various comic and romantic complications ensue.
Tropes:
- Animated Credits Opening: The credits play over simple animation of waves on a beach and cocktail umbrellas bouncing around.
- Call-Back: In two days Jean drains every last penny from whatever modest savings accounts he has, as he squires beautiful Irene around. When it's time to go he gives her literally his last euro for ten more seconds. Irene, who obviously is starting to develop feelings for Jean, gives him a ten-second Meaningful Look before leaving. Later, she buys ten seconds of his time with the same coin when they're flirting in the changing rooms. And at the end, Jean tosses the coin into the toll booth, before he and Irene zoom through it on their scooter on the way to a new life.
- Credit Card Destruction: Not the typical "your card has been declined" scene at a store. In this particular example, Irene comes back to the room after a fling with Jean and finds that Jacques has cut her credit card in half. Jacques, who found out that she cheated on him, dumps her.
- Dress Hits Floor: Irene, who obviously enjoyed the sex with Jean and wants more even on the night that Jacques has asked her to marry him, shucks off her cocktail dress in an instant after they get into a room.
- Feet-First Introduction: The first we see of Irene is of her feet going into a very expensive pair of high-heeled shoes.
- Food Slap: When Jean finally breaks up with Madeleine. A shamefaced Jean says that he'll leave the scooter that she bought for him in the parking lot. She throws her drink in his face, tells him he can keep the scooter, and walks away.
- Gold Digger: They're everywhere. Irene makes her living digging for gold in rich men's pockets, and hopes to hit the mother lode as a Trophy Wife. She later gives Jean lessons on how to be a gold digger, and he succeeds in coaxing a €30,000 watch out of Madeleine. Later, when Madeleine is desperate to win Jacques back and get financial security again, she finds him on the arm of a different Gold Digger named Agnes. She pries Agnes away from Jacques by making her think that Jean is a prince.
- Happy Birthday to You!: A drunk Irene, who seems determined to show Jean a good time, sings "Happy Birthday to You" in French to Jean as she climbs on top of him for sex.
- High-Class Call Girl: Sort of. Irene probably technically isn't this, as she isn't offering simple fee-for-service sex. Instead, she latches onto rich men and bleeds them for money and gifts and high living. But it's a pretty fine distinction, and in one scene she refers to the hunt for a rich man as "work".
- Match Cut: A closeup of one of the cocktail umbrellas in Irene's glass cuts to a real beach umbrella, as the movie cuts forward a year to the next season and our protagonists's second meeting.
- Meal Ticket: Irene's sole means of support lies in finding various Meal Tickets. She would like to find the security of a Trophy Wife but her night of passion with Jean screws up her relationship with Jacques. Later Madeleine is the meal ticket for Jean, after he loses his job and spends literally all of his money entertaining Irene for just a couple of days.
- Meet Cute: Irene finds Jean dozing in the hotel lounge, and Jean can't bring himself to tell the devastatingly gorgeous woman chatting him up the truth.
- The Mistress:
- This is how Irene supports herself. At the beginning she's Jacques's kept woman, and later when she meets Jean again she's the companion of another older rich guy.
- Then it's gender-flipped with Jean, who, due to an unpaid hotel bill winds up sort of accidentally stumbling into being the kept man of an older rich lady, Madeleine.
- Moment Killer: Irene's lessons in seduction (she's teaching Jean how to be a Gold Digger) seem like they're about to end in passionate sex, until the alarm on Jean's watch sounds. He has to go back to meet Madeleine.
- Ms. Fanservice: Audrey Tautou, everybody. Irene in an Navel-Deep Neckline dress... Irene in yet another Navel-Deep Neckline dress... Irene in a succession of Sexy Backless Outfits... Irene showing Toplessness from the Back in a changing room... Irene in a Modesty Towel... Irene in a bikini...
- Ms. Red Ink: Deliberately invoked and lampshaded. Irene's one-night-stand with Jean, which happened in large part because he pretended to be rich, breaks up her relationship with Jacques and destroys her chance at being a Trophy Wife. Now having to start at square one, Irene goes to Nice, scrounges around until she finds another rich guy, and wrangles an invitation for dinner...until Jean, who has followed her, shows up at the restaurant and ruins that too. So instead Irene invites Jean to her table at the restaurant and makes him pay for her lavish lifestyle of handbags and dresses and five-star-hotel rooms and $300 dinner entrees. When just two days of this exhausts all of Jean's meager bartender's savings, she leaves him.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: Also Book Ends of a sort. When Jean and Irene have their first romantic encounter she's wearing a dress cut to the navel, and at the climactic fancy party she's wearing another one.
- Off-into-the-Distance Ending: Jean and Irene zip away on a motor scooter, having given up gold digging for a life together.
- Pool Scene: Irene goes out to the hotel pool in a bikini to sun herself. It turns to drama, however, when Irene finds out that Gilles has left her high and dry (he saw her kissing Jean) and has taken everything in the room, abandoning her by the pool with absolutely nothing except her bikini and wrap.
- Race for Your Love: Technically "Race To Stop Your Love From Having Sex With Another Woman." But it plays like this, as Irene, after having her Love Epiphany, races across the hotel, leaving her high heels behind as she dashes through the hallways and stairs, finally pounding on Jean's door. Jean opens, Agnes leaves clad in a Modesty Bedsheet, and Jean and Irene kiss.
- Running Gag: Irene teaches Jean a little trick for seducing meal tickets: unfinished sentences. Saying things like "I want..." or "I would like to..." or "I think..." and staring off into space is guaranteed to get the Meal Ticket eating out of your hand. Jean tries this once, and Madeleine winds up giving him a watch that costs 30,000 euros. He tries it a second time, and a pissed-off Madeleine cuts through the bullshit, because he's been neglecting her (for Irene). Late in the film, when Gold Digger Agnes tries it on him (she thinks he's royalty), Jean laughs. And at the climax this is how Irene makes her Anguished Declaration of Love.Irene: I want... I would like to... kiss you. (they kiss)
- Sexy Backless Outfit: If Irene is wearing a dress it is virtually guaranteed to be one of these.
- "Shut Up" Kiss: Shut Up Sex. Irene wants to escape the hotel room for a midnight getaway with Jean, but her latest Meal Ticket Gilles won't stop Talking in Bed. Finally she puts a stop to his endless yammering by leaning over, kissing him hard on the mouth, and jumping on top of him. It works, as Gilles falls asleep and Irene sneaks out for a midnight picnic at the beach with Jean.
- Spit Take: Irene does this when she sees Jean yet again, while she is at breakfast with her latest Meal Ticket, Gilles. She doesn't realize that he's not following her anymore, he's with his own Meal Ticket, Madeleine.
- Zip Me Up: Madeleine does this to flirt with Jean when they meet each other in neighboring changing rooms, trying on fancy clothes that their respective Meal Tickets are buying for them.
