MOVIE · 1967

Playtime

Comedy155 min

In a gleaming modern Paris of glass offices, gadgets, and identical corridors, a simple appointment turns into a daylong maze. Monsieur Hulot drifts in and out of the action as tourists, clerks, businessmen, and shoppers all try to navigate spaces designed to be efficient but only create confusion. Small misunderstandings multiply: doors misbehave, reflections deceive, and every polished surface seems to hide another wrong turn. What starts as a series of errands and chance encounters builds into a larger comic portrait of a city where people keep bumping up against the systems meant to organize them. Jacques Tati keeps Hulot slightly off-center, letting the whole crowd become the joke.