Smoking Causes Coughing

Unpredictable, digressive, looping and parenthetical in structure, Smoking Causes Coughing is one of the most formally daring and unexpected films of the year.

Tongues are firmly in cheeks throughout, and Adèle Exarchopoulos steals the movie as a cheery smartphone addict who keeps vlogging into the digital abyss, even as she’s being pursued by a murderer.

This brilliant oddity is truly a film like no other.

Dupieux always opts for the funniest or most absurd option over any kind of narrative sense; if you surrender to his silliness, you’re in for a très drôle time.

If Smoking Causes Coughing is easy on the eye, it’s even easier on the brain, blithely tripping along Monty Python-like from incident to incident...

The portmanteau structure suits Dupieux’s demented sensibility, providing a wildly varied yet consistently entertaining dose of bafflement and bemusement.

I could say that it is like a failed experiment, which, like tobacco, only leaves a bad taste in the mouth. [Full review in Spanish]

What is virtuous in this context devoid of any logic is the fluidity between the different stories that make up the film... [Full review in Spanish]

Although it is not among the most successful works of its director, it has his seal, his imprint, his irruptions of physical humor and visual delirium. [Full review in Spanish]

Dupieux’s hilarious and horrifying new film Smoking Causes Coughing is an ironic breath of fresh air.