General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20265 min read

Alceste à bicyclette

Alceste à bicyclette is a 2013 French comedy-drama directed by Philippe Le Guay, in which a retired stage actor living in solitude on Île de Ré is drawn back toward the theater when a successful friend asks him to appear in a production of Molière's Le Misanthrope. It stars Fabrice Luchini as Serge Tanneur, Lambert Wilson as Gauthier Valence, and Maya Sansa as Francesca, and was released in French cinemas on 16 January 2013.¹

Key fact	Detail
Director and screenwriters	Philippe Le Guay; screenplay by Le Guay with Fabrice Luchini, from an original idea by the two men¹
Release	16 January 2013 in French cinemas; distributed by Pathé Films¹^•²
Main cast	Fabrice Luchini (Serge Tanneur), Lambert Wilson (Gauthier Valence), Maya Sansa (Francesca)³
Running time	105 minutes per Pathé; other listings give 1h44 or 1h40¹^•⁴^•⁵
French box office	1,131,726 admissions in France²
Recognition	3 nominations at the 2014 César Awards⁴
English titles	Cycling with Molière (UK release, 4 July 2014); Bicycling with Molière (US)⁶^•⁷

Spoilers

Plot

Serge Tanneur, once a great stage actor, quit show business at the height of his career, worn down by anger and fatigue with a profession in which, as the synopsis puts it, everyone betrays everyone. For three years he has lived as a recluse in a dilapidated house on Île de Ré, spending most of his time cycling through the windswept island.¹^•²

His friend Gauthier Valence, a popular television actor known for heroic roles, arrives with a proposal: he has obtained financing to stage Molière's Le Misanthrope and wants Serge for the title role of Alceste, a part that seems tailor-made for a man who has become a misanthrope himself. Serge refuses outright, saying he will never return to the stage, but he is tempted and agrees to rehearse the play with Gauthier for five days without committing to a performance.²^•⁸

Because both men prefer the role of Alceste to that of the easygoing Philinte, they decide to alternate the two parts in rehearsal. Tirades, quarrels, confidences, and bicycle rides follow in the quiet of the winter island. They meet Francesca, a volcanic Italian divorcée, who unintentionally intensifies the battle of egos between them.⁵^•⁷ The film plays on the boundary between the play's text and the characters' real lives, in the fashion of films about the theater.⁶

Origin

The project grew directly out of the director's relationship with his lead actor. While preparing Les Femmes du 6e étage (2010), Le Guay visited Luchini on Île de Ré, where the actor was spending his vacation. The two met on the island's paths, and when Le Guay remarked that Luchini lived at the far end of the island like a misanthrope, Luchini immediately began reciting the Act I scene of Le Misanthrope. Le Guay has described stopping their bicycles at sunset and telling him: "We are going to make a film together, it will be called Alceste à bicyclette." Three years later they returned to the same paths to shoot it.⁹ In an earlier conversation on the island, Luchini had told the director of his love for the play's two central characters, Alceste and Philinte, and the film idea was born from that exchange.²

The two lead roles mirror the play's opposition. Serge, played by Luchini, is a bitter actor who cultivates his resentment and has withdrawn from the world, close to Alceste; Gauthier, played by Wilson, is a successful actor with none of Alceste's traits, closer to the prudent, reasonable Philinte, willing to compromise with sincerity to avoid making waves.⁹ Critics noted the casting was tailored to Luchini, whose passion for the French language and resistance to modernity resemble his character's; the two men are friends in real life and imagined the story together.¹⁰

Production

The film was produced by Anne-Dominique Toussaint, with music by Jorge Arriagada, cinematography by Jean-Claude Larrieu, and editing by Monica Coleman. It was a co-production of Appaloosa Développement, France 2 Cinéma, Les Films des Tournelles, and Pathé, with a production year of 2012 and image format 1.85.¹ The supporting cast includes Laurie Bordesoules (Zoé), Camille Japy (Christine), Annie Mercier (Tamara), Ged Marlon (Meynard), Christine Murillo, Josiane Stoléru, and Édith Le Merdy.³^•⁴ The film was shot in French and Italian.²

Reception

The film drew 1,131,726 admissions in France.² On AlloCiné it received an average press score of 3.6 from 20 reviews and a spectator score of 3.5 from about 3,450 ratings.² Reviewers singled out the verbal duel between the two leads: Le Parisien praised the pleasure of hearing the two men provoke each other in Molière's language, and Télé 7 Jours called the spectacle of two egos taming each other with sharp dialogue and well-placed alexandrines (French twelve-syllable verse lines, Molière's meter) the film's stroke of genius.¹¹ Some critics were more reserved; La Croix judged that the construction would have gained from being tightened, and Les Inrockuptibles found the chamber piece worth little beyond one good idea.¹¹ On IMDb the film holds a rating of 6.6/10 from about 3,300 users and a Metascore of 61.¹²

It received 3 nominations at the 2014 César Awards.⁴ The film was released in the United Kingdom as Cycling with Molière on 4 July 2014 by Curzon Film World, and in the United States as Bicycling with Molière through Strand Releasing.⁶^•⁷

Relation to Molière

The film is both a homage to and a displaced adaptation of Le Misanthrope. Academic commentary has examined how the dialectical confrontation of Act I, scene 1, between the radical Alceste and the moderate Philinte, reappears in the opposition between the two protagonists, and how the Italian dubbed version (Molière in bicicletta, 2013) balances metrical constraints with a twenty-first-century updating of the theatrical play.¹³ A Slovenian theater journal study treats the film as a reinterpretation of one of Molière's most famous works, and notes that it did not receive unanimously enthusiastic reviews in the run-up to the 39th César Awards.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of 2013 to 2014 › Titles symbols to I

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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