The Mystery of Henri Pick

Far away from Paris, in a small Breton town, lies the mysterious Library of Rejected Books. When a young editor discovers and publishes a promising manuscript here, the novel quickly becomes a bestseller. The only problem is that the author, a pizza chef called Henri Pick, has been dead for two years. What's more, Henri was never considered well-read, nor had he ever been seen writing anything - apart from a shopping list. A case for the famous and feared literary critic Jean-Michel Rouche (Fabrice Luchini), who immediately casts doubt on the authorship of the ominous work in a TV program - and provokes a major scandal in the process. In order to save his little bit of honor, Jean-Michel travels to Henri Pick's hometown and tries to trace his literary traces there - with the active support of the deceased's daughter. Cheerful, clever and full of delightful vignettes, Rémi Bezançon's crime comedy tells of the desire for books, for storytelling and, above all, for revelations! With its look behind the scenes of the literary industry, the film adaptation of David Foenkinos' book thriller of the same name also pokes fun at the publishing industry and the hype surrounding its authors. It's not the literary quality that counts, but the emotional story behind it - this is the film's thesis, before it sends its critic Rouche out to scrape off the romantic veneer of the ingenious pizza chef. Hanna Schygulla's performance as a Russian exile, who thinks she recognizes herself in the novel's heroine, is also delicious. “But this is just one of many trails that this film, which is itself a literary adaptation, brings to light like a Matryoshka doll [...]. If the center of the story were not a murder mystery, but a real homicide, one might be reminded of Agatha Christie by the multitude of bizarre secondary characters and the amateur detective. It's fascinating how naturally a story from the cultural scene is staged for the mainstream in France. [...] However, the idea of a reading room for rejected manuscripts has been a reality for some time. It is called the Internet.” (Daniel Kothenschulte, at: fr.de)