MovieChat Forums > L'auberge espagnole (2003) Discussion > So, the main character is a little bit o...

So, the main character is a little bit of an unlikable rapist


I just watched this for the first time, and I was pretty put off by it. I didn't totally hate it, but a friend had said that it was one of her favorite movies of all time, and now I'm considering re-evaluating our friendship. ;) Not really, but come on...

I had several little (negligible) problems with the movie, but I couldn't ignore how weird and poorly written the main character's affair with his married friend was...So, the lesbian teaches him how to touch a woman, then he forces himself upon his friend and all of sudden she's his sex slave?! Then the husband finds out, says he never wants to see the guy again, BUT STILL SHOWS UP WITH HIS WIFE AT THE GOING-AWAY PARTY?!!! Maybe it's a cultural thing, but the way he started groping her on that deck to "break the ice," in America he would have been kicked in the groin and that would have been that, no matter how lonely she felt. Though, thinking about it now, she did marry that buffoon thanks to her (obviously misguided) belief in love at first sight, so she must have something wrong with her anyway. But seriously, when she started kissing him back, after a second of disbelief I became convinced that he was dreaming. *Completely* convinced. Imagine my surprise when I saw that he wasn't.

But then we're supposed to sympathize with the main guy when his girlfriend dumps him? Yes, I understand that it wouldn't feel good even if you have been getting a bunch of ass on the side, but he seemed totally floored by it...Are we supposed to go "Awwww, poor guy!"? There were some parts of this movie where I honestly thought that maybe the writer/director had never been outside of his house and interacted with other people.

Again, I'm not European so maybe I'm just missing something...

http://www.dvdaficionado.com/dvds.html?id=joshacid37

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Um... I have to admit that was the only PROBLEM I had with the film. There were all these GORGEOUS women attracted to Xavier. I'm sorry, but Xavier was a total geek and dork. He was not attractive... sorry! They were way out of his league. But it's the Movie World, not Reality.

In Hollywood, it's similar. Especially on TV. You have all these dorks and losers... even old and fat ones... with these incredibly hot girlfriends and wives.

I never saw his character as a Rapist though. Where did you get that?? We were suppose to believe that the married woman had the major hots for Xavier... that it was CONSENSUAL.

P.S. I've been to France many times, and I've seen many guys way hotter than Xavier!!

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Yeah, the only thing about the movie that i really didn't like was the main character. Xavier is extremely odd looking, and a tad sex offenderish. i would have preffered a less creepy looking and acting main character. besides that all of the other characters were amazing.

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In france Romain Duris is a sex symbole... maybe it is just cultural... a different way to see beauty... I mean that true is not the typical quaterback looking.. But that was not suppose to be. He is just a regular student among others in their prime who lived the excitement of been alone in a completely different culture..

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There are no "leagues".

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I wouldn't call Xavier a rapist, he was a bit manhandlish at first with Anne-Sophie but she gave in...

I did not like Xavier and thought he was possibly the least likable character in the movie. He was sleeping with his friend's wife while "dating" a girl from back home...and when the girl from back home called to inform him that she had moved on, he was actually upset...as if he had ANY right to be.

EDIT

He was also such a jackass towards his mother!!

"Constantly talking isn't necessarily communicating."

Formerly heyitsjulie

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I would enjoy beating the snot out of Xavier.

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Rape? No way. Not even close. Xavier knew from the way they were touching each other sky-tram ride that she wanted him. The only thing Xavier could be guilty of was unwanted kissing. But that very quickly changed, so there couldn't possibly even be a conviction there.

That being said, he definitely was a bit of an unlikable pr!ck. First, there is the obvious - he cheated on his girlfriend, the lovely Audrey Tautou. Although I, as a horny man, do have to cut him some slack on that. It was with the absolutely sizzling Judith Godreche, after all, and there is the old axiom, what happens in Barcelona, stays in Barcelona. And of course, it seems like everyone else was cheating on their beloveds as well, or at least Wendy and the Danish guy were.

But seriously, the cheating is not acceptable, Judith and Barcelona be damned. Then there is the way he treats his mother. Again, not cool to scream at your mom to "shut the f up."

But more importantly (to me) than all of that, is that Anne-Sophie was just about forbidden sex, and nothing else for him, and he didn't realize that it was more than that for her. He screws his friend's wife, and thereby screws over his friend, the guy who was nothing but nice to him, the guy who Xavier said "I always try to stay away from guys like him."

Then on top of that, is the scene after he first gets together with her and goes back to the apartment and describes it to Isabelle, where he says something like, "tomorrow I'm going to tell her 'suck my c@ck, you slut'" is way out of bounds, and shows he's just a pr!ck, deep down. He is just using her for sex, and although it is great, awesome, mind-blowing sex, she is getting emotionally attached to him. He doesn't acknowledge that at all. She's just another piece of a$$ to him.

It's funny, though, until I came to these boards and thought about it, I actually liked the main character. Well, I didn't like that scene with Isabelle, but he seemed sweet, relatively harmless, happy-go-lucky. Now I'm in the middle of watching Russian Dolls, and I'm not really liking him.




I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.

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Whoaa, wait this isn't on topic but...


"And of course, it seems like everyone else was cheating on their beloveds as well, or at least Wendy and the Danish guy were."

Lars was cheating on Soledad? Or did you mean because of the child? I think he was with that other girl before coming to Spain and hooking up with Soledad.


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[deleted]

The best, most insightful and precise analysis of the main characters I have found, not only on this thread but on the whole board - sharply observed and well written!

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agree....insightful & very well conveyed interpretation, aurileo!


"Hey, how come Andrew gets to get up? If he gets up...we'll all get up...IT'LL BE ANARCHY!!"

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I would not limit the remark to Xavier. All French people in this film are represented in a way that would lead you to think they are all absolutely annoying. The 4 French examples we have here are Xavier, his girlfriend, and the couple that he meets at the airport. None of them is attractive. Martine (Audrey Tautou) is just a pain, always complaining and moaning. Anne-Sophie looks incredibly silly and boring. Her husband is the kind of pretentious prick that anyone with a brain (that he is supposed to fix), would avoid like the plague. And Xavier himself, is the worst of all. A flat character, uninteresting, with whom you would not exchange ten words, even stuck with him in a lift during 2 hours. In the real life, this guy would have accepted the job he did not deserve, at the finance minister.

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Tux-12 no doubt makes a great Republican.

Why do Americans feel so self-righteous about crying rape all the time? How is a woman willingly engaging in sex considered rape? Such accusers treat women like their helpless creatures who can't take care of themselves, or enjoy being thrown on a bed. (There a millions of men who pray some woman will throw them on a bed.)

And yes, the French and other Europeans are less uptight about sex than Americans. They start having sex earlier, are more candid and less inhibited about it than their cousins across the pond. I think it was Dietrich who said, "One day, Americans will learn that sex is here to stay."

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The number of stupid comments on this board regarding this film and the characters is devastating. How can someone start a thread saying that Xavier was a rapist? Have people become so obsessed with sex and consider it as an evil thing that the type of relationship shown in this film can be reduced to rape? And limiting Xavier to a dork and an offender because he said a joke about how to stimulate a girl to blow him is completely stupid.

And Romain Duris is an amazing actor. He's charming and cute. Most of the time, charm and nice smiles atract more than vapid models with interchangeable looks. But those people are so repulsed by his behavior that they prefer to see him as an ugly man.

I've also read other comments about how horrible the film was because the main character slept with a married woman and seemed to endorse extra-marital affairs. It seems that people are so narrow-minded that everything needs to have a moral value and that the film director should have somehow mention that this kind of behavior was punishable under criminal law. Well, I guess that L'Auberge Espagnole is not Sex and the City where a stupid married wife freaked out because she kissed one of her ex-boyfriends and the bunch of her stupid girlfriends started crying as if the world had come to an end.

I'm not even a big fan of the film. I saw it recently and I think it hasn't aged very well; yet it is charming and I like that the characters are not basic, totally likeable or perfect. I like the fact that they make mistakes, that they may not regret their mistakes because they're young or selfish. I don't need to love the characters to enjoy a movie. I just need to watch interesting and original people and storylines. I'm amazed to see the number of people who look for a moral redemption or so-called virtuous behaviors in movies so that they can feel better about themselves. This is cheap, unintelligent, vain, boring, colourless, dull, flat, limp, tame, tedious, tiresome, uninspiring, uninteresting.

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The higher you fly, the faster you fall.

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I actually really liked the film and at least I actually lived in many countries(I grew up in New York), lived in London, Paris, Belgium, Italy, Germany, South America so I guess compared to some American hicks who probably never even have been out of their redneck area I can actually differ between Americans and Europeans, My childhood in New York wasn't exactly like 'The Little House on the Prairie' so maybe unless you're really ignorant, the scene where he seduces the married woman doesn't come across as a rape scene. People really aren't that different no matter where you live. To say an American woman would have kicked him in the balls is completely ignorant.
I hate this stereotyping of Europeans. William, the dumb brother of Wendy is exactly the person who thinks in these stereotype that got on everybody's nerves.

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