Karl Marx famously opined, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." In the undistinguished career of French writer-director Francis Veber, history also repeats itself, first as farce, second as Americanized farce. After perfecting the form with 1978's La Cage Aux Folles, which was later retooled for The Birdcage, Veber gave Hollywood the blueprint for one dire comedy after another: Les Fugitifs was remade as Three Fugitives, La Chèvre as Pure Luck, Les Compères as Fathers' Day, and last year's Le Dîner De Cons as the impending Dinner For Schmucks. No word yet on whether his latest boilerplate screwball, The Closet, currently resides in the studio pipeline, but the only people likely to respond to this mild, dated riff on gays in the workplace are those whose experience with gay people is limited to watching episodes of TV's Will & Grace. Inverting the La Cage Aux Folles formula, in which a gay man tries to pass himself off as straight, The Closet offers up Daniel Auteuil as a straight man who pretends to be gay in order to keep his job. Labeled an ineffectual nothing at the office, where he's out-of-frame in the company photo, and at home, where he's dismissed by his ex-wife and teenage son, Auteuil discovers that his position at the rubber factory is in jeopardy. (He overhears this information while sitting in a bathroom stall, an early indicator that the material is less than fresh.) So, he and new neighbor Michel Aumont conspire to send his boss doctored photos of a leather-bound Auteuil in a gay nightclub, implying that his firing might reflect badly on the company. The plan works like gangbusters: As the photos circulate around the office, Auteuil becomes so popular that the house homophobe (Gérard Depardieu) goes to great lengths to accommodate him, for fear of losing his job. By now, Veber knows the mechanics of farce by rote: The Closet runs like a clock, with complications that accumulate and dovetail smoothly to a crisp 90 minutes. Even when the jokes fall flat—and just about all of them do—the film at least has the appearance of a good comedy. Veber also has the good judgment to not push his star into swishy stereotypes and flaming behavior. But that restraint disappears with the embarrassing sight of Auteuil donning a condom hat in a Gay Pride parade. And perhaps it's time to place a cinematic moratorium on factory tours for groups of Japanese businessmen. They only lead to trouble.