Claude Lelouch's Robert Et Robert is a bittersweet love story which twists and turns its way toward an up-tempo finale. Robert Villiers (Jacques Villeret), a shy butterball who is studying to be a policeman, and Robert Goldman (Charles Denner), a wispy and nervous cab driver, meet a computer dating service run by a slick entrepreneur and his cynical wife (Jean-Claude Briarly and Nelia Bielski). Both men are dominated by their strong willed mothers and both are spectacularly lacking in social graces.
As the plot thickens, we see the two Roberts drawn together by their mutual inability to relate to women. Goldman eventually gets Villiers in the cab business and his support is enough to give his moon-faced friend a shot of confidence. At a party, Villiers does some jokes and comic sketches well enough to propel him, with Goldman's backing, into the world of showbiz.
Jacques Villeret and Charles Denner are vulnerable and touching as the two losers who eventually beat the odds against loneliness and anonymity. Lelouch's cinematic pacing is slow but deliberate as he encircles us and these two characters with a ribbon of optimism.