‘Bye Bye Morons’ Review (‘Adieu les cons’): César Winner Pales in Comparison to Its Influences

A suicidal It specialist and a blind archivist help a dying woman find the child she gave up for adoption in French director Albert Dupontel’s “Adieu les cons,” rechristened “Bye Bye Morons” in the U.S.. If you’re wondering how the iconoclastic Dupontel would incorporate such a trio into a comedy, drama, satire or farce, therein lies the issue: “Bye Bye Morons” tries to be all four of those genres at once, often to its detriment.The visually inventive helmer, whose films are frequently based on dark and provocative ideas, again uses his anti-authoritarian streak as a blunt instrument, creating a frenetic and labored work that’s long on half-explored themes and short on laughs. That said, Gallic audiences thoroughly embraced the film, which opened days after the first Covid-19 curfew shut down a handful of major French cities in October 2020. Amid such exceptional circumstances, the film became a runaway box office success,...