Whatever review

Whatever has to run away with the gong for Most Downright Miserable Film Of The Year. Our Hero (Philippe Harel) is a computer programmer who slowly, but surely, is opting out of life. Initially there's hope that something will halt his breakdown and mute his sexual frustration-shaped philosophisings. But no...

A business trip with good-natured loser Tisserand (Jose Garcia) gives Our Hero someone to drag down with him. In one particularly unwelcome scene he even encourages Tisserand to cut up the women he's failed to woo. With such an attitude, it's a wonder the film was passed by the BBFC.

By the end it comes across as something of a Gallic In The Company Of Men; but unlike Neil LaBute's film, the humour soon withers. And yet you keeping watching, choking on Our Hero's disconcertingly perceptive dissections of society. A grimly compelling piece of Camus-esque misery-drama.