Eddie Mousson lives in the fashionable Paris district of Bastille (the Parisian Holland Park) and together with Patsy runs a celebrity makeover agency with just one client, Chantal Goya, who used to be famous as a singer of children’s songs (the rough French equivalent of Lulu). Eddie is divorced after having found her husband in bed with another man. She has the photographs to prove it. Her daughter Safrane is studious and is applying to join an elite college called L’Ecole Polytechnique, whose students wear old-style military uniform. Very much the moustachioed virgin, Safrane is a disappointment to her mother. Eddie threw paving stones, albeit unenthusiastically, during the May 1968 riots in Paris, she danced at Woodstock, went punky in the 1970s and gets with every trend that comes along. Eddie’s mother on the other hand takes everything in her stride and is fazed by nothing.
The action starts at Eddie’s 50th birthday party. Eddie is not happy to be 50 and sits at the top of the stairs listening in on the assembled guests. She loses her balance and slides down the stairs ending up in a heap. Mamie tells everyone not to worry because Eddie has been like that since she was a small child. A delivery boy arrives with the party food. Safrane is shocked that the food has cost around £1,600 for what looks like a few trays of sandwiches. She wants to complain, but finds herself being charmed out of creating a fuss by the handsome Jonathan. A flicker of suppressed passion passes across Safrane’s countenance. During the party Eddie’s fax machine breaks down and in frustration she and Patsy set about hitting it. Jonathan explains that all it needs is a new ink cartridge.
Patsy is not so slow when she sees something she likes and within a few minutes she and Jonathan are at it in the back of his van. The van bears the name of the catering company he represents “Madame est Servie” – “Madame is Served”, which has the same connotations in French as it does in English. Jonathan’s uniform gets covered in squashed canapés and vol-au-vent filling and Patsy decides to take him home with her so that he can give his uniform a clean. Needless to say she ends up spending the night with him.
Eddie wakes up the next day and weighs herself, and works her way through a succession of scales and removes more and more clothing and jewellery, but to no avail. She meets Patsy and they go by car to her office drinking champagne on the way. Their secretary is a complete airhead and also a transvestite, who cannot accomplish simple things like remembering messages. The agency’s only client Chantal Goya is complaining that she isn’t getting any more television appearances and Eddie promises her that she’ll fix something up for her like a chat show. After this brief visit to the office, the pair go off on a shopping spree down the Avenue Montaigne, which is home to Paris’ swishest designer boutiques.
Meanwhile Safrane is in a non-smoking canteen with her studious friends. Finding herself surrounded by smokers she goes on the attack and begins a lecture about the no smoking rule and the dangers of tobacco. To Safrane’s disappointment the whole canteen empties, not just the smokers. Everyone goes except Jonathan who was lurking in the background. He continues the flirting he began with her at the party. Again she isn’t that interested.
The ever-helpful Jonathan returns to Eddie’s house to bring her an ink cartridge for her fax machine. Safrane arrives back halfway through the proceedings and is shocked to find a semi-naked man in the kitchen. Shocked, but also intrigued. Her mother pleads with her to be pleasant and asks if they can be friends, to which Safrane replies no and that they are just mother and daughter. She decides to have some fun at her mother’s expense by swapping her uppers for sleeping tablets. Which means that just as the fun is about to start between Eddie and Jonathan, he suddenly falls asleep!
The next day Eddie and Patsy seek inspiration for their celebrity makeover business at a Jean-Paul Gaultier fashion show. Jennifer Saunders and Catherine Deneuve are also present and chat briefly together in French. “Absolument fabuleux,” comments Jennifer on the show. Then as Eddie and Patsy stumble onto the catwalk to fall at the designer’s feet Catherine asks Jennifer if she knows them. Jennifer says that she thinks they were introduced to her and her head sinks in exasperation.
After the show, Eddie and Patsy celebrate at the Queen Club on the Champs Elysées a little too much and the next morning get pulled over in their car by the police. Eddie collapses at the policeman’s feet and Patsy swings at him with her handbag which flies open releasing a sachet containing an interesting-looking powder.
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Get more Absolument Fabuleux at the movie's site officiel and from France's CANAL+.
Absolument Fabuleux © BAC Films