'Molière' is as satisfying as a knockoff

Showing up for "Molière" eager for the story of one of the theater's greatest comedy writers would be unwise. It's not that kind of party. Like the current "Becoming Jane," in which Jane Austen is retrofitted as one of her own heroines, the movie is a "Shakespeare in Love" number in which the actor-playwright finds himself starring in an imaginary version of his work. All the basic Molière ingredients are here (disguises, lust, lies). All right, just some of them: The essential wit and comic comeuppances are scarce. But the less one knows about Jean Baptiste Poquelin, whose nom de stage was the flashier Molière, or the less one cares that this movie has no easy affinity with his sensibility, the more fun it is. Imagine Marc Jacobs happily carrying around one of his knockoff handbags and you get the idea.

Romain Duris, who was so intensely coiled in "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," gives us a Molière who is untucked, serious, and snidely condescending, an artiste whose greatness is as-yet untapped. Which is to say: He's miscast. He seems like the sort of hipster-thug who'd beat you up for liking Molière in the first place.

Since so little is known about the playwright's life, the movie, directed by Laurent Tirard, is free to throw biographical caution to the wind. But Tirard and co-writer Grégoire Vigneron turn undiscovered territory into boilerplate. "I have something to say," Molière broods not long after the film has begun. This feels like a stretch. Nonetheless, his troupe has just returned from a stint performing in the provinces and his royal audience anticipates another comedy, preferably something with shipwrecks (His Highness likes those). But Molière wants to do a drama, one he's written. His fellow actors laugh at him, since he has no facility for depth. But when two creditors show up to collect at one of his performances, he mocks them and the audience response suggests that depth is overrated. Bring on the buffoonery. He's promptly jailed, then bailed out just as promptly by Jourdain (Fabrice Luchini), an aristocrat who wants Molière to help him compose a play to woo Célimène (Ludivine Sagnier), a randy miss whom Jourdain, somewhat without cause, fancies as his mistress.

Molière wants none of it, but it's either this or back to the pokey. So he complies. But Jourdain's wife, Elmire (Laura Morante), and daughter, Henriette (Fanny Valette), must be kept in the dark, so Molière spends his stay at the Jourdain estate pretending to be a tutoring priest named Tartuffe. Needless to say, he finds himself facilitating Henriette's amorous rendezvous, falling in love with Elmire, and doing very little to enrich the theatrical ambitions of his philandering sponsor.

To authenticate what is meant to pass for Molière, Tirard and Vigneron tie the story into knots. For instance, Jourdain employs Dorante (Edouard Baer) as a courier to flit between himself and Célimène, a thorough conflict of interest since Dorante has the hots for her, too. Everybody appears to be having a good time at this circus, but Luchini is fantastic. He makes sure Jourdain's selfishness and idiocy have a lining of emotional intelligence and surprising sensitivity. The character is a fool, but, in the finest Molière tradition, one whose brain is equipped with working light bulbs.

Like Molière's own comedies, this movie tries to cut through the daffiness to strike out at contradictions and dishonesty. The hypocrites are put in their place. But that's not all that the movie wants to say -- or feels compelled to do. It must also explain the provenance of Molière's genius. As a work of counterfeit slapstick, "Molière" is a smoothly orchestrated entertainment. As a piece of speculative biography, the movie is unpersuasive -- leaving it, you wouldn't be wrong to think he was just a libidinous jester who wanted more for himself. Maybe that doesn't sound terribly farfetched, but the movie doesn't know what to make of his talents. It's just trading on his good name. The film shouldn't be used to teach the ways of classic French comedy. It does, however, radically shorten the distance between Molière and "Three's Company."

Wesley Morris can be reached at wmorris@globe.com. For more on movies, go to boston.com/ae/ movies/blog.