"Double Messieurs" is the French tennis term for men's doubles, and though there are signs of a competitive game in this film, the competition is definitely turned inward. Acting on a whim, François (played by Stevenin), a balding Parisian businessman, looks up an old boyhood buddy, Leo, with an uncanny resemblance to Jean-Paul Belmondo. Leo is a victim of arrested development, the narcissist unable to relinquish his vanished youth. For his part, François is attracted to this infantile jokester, yet his better sense looks to the future, receding hairline and all. Together, the "double messieurs" travel to Grenoble to surprise "The Kuntch," a classmate they had terrorized in the past. Director Stevenin's second feature (after 1978's Passe-montagne) recalls the quirky technique of John Cassavetes, but without the emotional purge. "Instead," writes Dave Kehr, "he focuses on the sense of blockage, of paralysis and desperation, that strikes characters torn between two conflicting impulses. It's Stevenin's particular ability to evoke the baffling rush of feeling and desire that results in the inability to act; his François, a 'double monsieur' all by himself, feels two strong emotions with an equal intensity at exactly the same time." Capitalizing on the energy and spontaneity of the cast, including this year's Chanel model Carole Bouquet, Double Messieurs roars and rolls, threatening to veer off in a dozen new directions.