French filmmaker Jacques Demy (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Donkey Skin) never shied away from dipping his toes in the fanciful, but A Slightly Pregnant Man takes a full dive into the delightfully absurd. A comic confection with a provocative aftertaste, Demy’s film concerns a mustachioed driving instructor (Marcello Mastroianni) and his hairdresser wife (Catherine Deneuve) faced with an unexpected pregnancy. As one can glean from the title, she’s not the one with the expanding belly. In Demy’s film, a serious examination of shifting gender roles sits happily alongside the goofball scenario.
