You Don't Have To Know The Language

writers_reign

I suppose it's lucky I enjoyed this film because if anything is critic-proof this is it. It has now racked up more admissions in France than any film except Titanic - it overhauled the previous French (as opposed to Hollywood) long-time leader La Grand Vadrouille a matter of days ago. France of course regularly throws up heavy-grossing films - think Amelie, Les Choristes, La Mome in this decade alone - and all of these are equally good, if not better than this one so whilst I don't begrudge its success I do find it somewhat inexplicable. I like the anti-PC element (leading man Kad Merad feigns disability in order to win a transfer to the Riviera) but the main thrust of the story - the singular dialect peculiar to Northern France - can take it only so far. Writer-director Danny Boon, a native of the region, spoke the dialect exclusively for the first two years of his life and full marks for getting a feature-length movie out of it. Kad Merad is excellent in the leading role as is veteran Line Renaud as Boon's mother. It's definitely entertaining but I would rate it no higher than that.

score 8/10

writers_reign 10 April 2008

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1855045/