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I studied Spanish for five years and have a deep, unrelenting bias to all foreign films that are not Spanish. I did not go into this French comedy – translated to Welcome to the Sticks – with very much hope that it was going to be a good film.
I could not have been any more incorrect.
Welcome to the Sticks is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen, foreign or domestic. It's about a guy – Philippe – who tries to con his way into getting a better job in warm, sunny southern France by pretending he's handicapped, gets caught, and is punished by being sent to The North. Everyone knows that The North is full of lazy, uneducated people and freezing weather and just absolute awfulness all around. Philippe is not excited, and his wife, Julie, is furious. She refuses to move with him and instead stays at home with their son. Philippe has to travel back on the weekends to visit his family.
But when Philippe arrives in The North, he discovers that it's nothing like the rumors he's heard; everyone is super friendly and everything is beautiful. The only problem is, they speak in a dialect that is almost impossible to understand. Hilarity ensues and the story continues, and Philippe lies to his wife and tells her that everything is terrible in The North, which actually helps to strengthen their marriage.
This was an incredibly cute film. The person who wrote the commentary even made the dialect come through in written English words, which was a little frustrating at first but helped English-only speakers to better understand the story. I would highly recommend this movie, and I kind of wonder if there could ever be an English equivalent to it – I think it would be almost impossible to do, which makes this movie especially unique, in my opinion. I give this film nine out of ten stars, and you should definitely choose this as your next Friday night rental.
score 9/10
kereader 6 February 2011
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2381332/ |
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11-4-2021 11:19:03