【英语听和读】我最好的朋友

 Amber 1: Hello, I’m Amber and this is bbclearningenglish.com.

In Entertainment today, we listen to two very different views of a new French
film called My Best Friend. And by the end of the programme, you’ll have
heard several ways of expressing like and dislike when talking about films or
books or plays.
 
My Best Friend is the latest film from Patrice Laconte, the director of Ridicule 2
and The Hairdresser’s Husband. It’s a comedy in which an antiques dealer 3
called Francois sets out to win a bet he’s made with his business partner – that
he can’t make a real friend by the end of the month. Francois thinks it will be
very easy to find a friend but he soon discovers that although he has lots of
contacts in his address book, he’s never spent much time with anyone.
Here’s critic Michael Goldfarb describing the plot of My Best Friend. He says
that Francois ‘seems to have everything of bourgeois 4 comfort’, he has a
comfortable, middle-class life, but he is challenged, he’s ‘confronted’, by a
‘profound absence’, a great want. Then, ‘through the mechanics of the story’,
or the workings of the plot, Francois successfully loses his ‘snobbery 5’, the
attitude of looking down on other people, to become ‘a better person’.
As you listen, try to catch any of the expressions Michael uses to praise the
film. 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
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bbclearningenglish.com
Michael Goldfarb
‘Someone who seems to have everything of bourgeois comfort is confronted by some more
profound absence and through the mechanics of the story overcomes his snobbery and learns
to be a better person. It’s incredibly adult. It’s paced particularly well and, for me, it was a
pleasure from the start to the finish.’
Amber: Michael says he thought the film was ‘incredibly adult’ – in other words, it was
amazingly mature, thoughtful and wise. He also thought it went at a welljudged
speed, or ‘pace’. He says: It’s paced particularly well. And he says it
pleased him all the way through – ‘it was a pleasure from the start to the finish’.
Listen again and notice how Michael stresses his point of view by using the
words ‘for me …’
Michael Goldfarb
‘Someone who seems to have everything of bourgeois comfort is confronted by some more
profound absence and through the mechanics of the story overcomes his snobbery and learns
to be a better person. It’s incredibly adult. It’s paced particularly well and, for me, it was a
pleasure from the start to the finish.’
Amber: Now here’s BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Bridget Kendall. She agrees with
critics who say that My Best Friend is a very French film – in other words, it
focuses on relationships and people’s feelings. But does she like the film? Try
to catch her point of view.
Bridget Kendall
‘I agree that’s immediately what I thought: a film about relationships, analysing feelings, but,
for me, it just didn’t work. It fell flat for me. I didn’t feel the characters were credible 6. Maybe
it’s a fairy story, but they still have to be characters you care about, and sitting there in the
cinema, half-way through, I thought: do I care about these characters? I thought: no!’ 
Entertainment © BBC Learning English 2007
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bbclearningenglish.com
Amber: Bridget does not like the film – she says ‘it just didn’t work, it fell flat for me’.
She didn’t believe in the characters, they didn’t seem real, or ‘credible’, to her,
and she didn’t care what happened to them. Notice she also uses the words ‘for
me’ to stress that she is giving her personal opinion and this is a polite way of
stressing your views.
Bridget Kendall
‘I agree that’s immediately what I thought: a film about relationships, analysing feelings, but,
for me, it just didn’t work. It fell flat for me. I didn’t feel the characters were credible. Maybe
it’s a fairy story, but they still have to be characters you care about, and sitting there in the
cinema, half-way through, I thought: do I care about these characters? I thought: no!’
Amber: Now here’s a list of the language we focussed on in the programme today.
 
to be confronted by a profound absence – to be challenged by a great want
the mechanics of the story – the workings of the plot
snobbery – looking down on other people
adult – mature, thoughtful and wise
If you really enjoyed the whole film you can say it was ‘a pleasure from the
start to the finish’
If you didn’t like the film and it did not hold your attention you can say it
‘didn’t work, it fell flat for me’
And if you didn’t believe in the characters, you can say, they weren’t ‘credible’
And a polite way to stress that you are giving your personal opinion is to say
‘for me …’