Anticipation.
A mega-hit in its native France, but will its local humour travel?
Enjoyment.
Retro, earnest and unabashedly feelgood, but all done with a sly sense of irony.
In Retrospect.
A fun movie, if not great “cinema”.
Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano deliver a glossy, good-natured portrait of family dysfunction in 1980s France.
A French nuclear family in the mid-1980s threatens to detonate in this cheerful portrait of dysfunction and distress from local hit machines Olivier Nakache and Éric Toledano. Twelve-year-old Vincent wants to leach some of the indie cool from his older brother, who makes a tidy profit bootlegging Cure live shows in order to impress sassy schoolmate Anne-Karine (Jeanne Lamartine). Meanwhile fusty dad Yves (Louis Garrel, with geek frames and bubble perm) has been given the boot from his junior executive office job, as mum Sandrine (Camille Cottin) is blazing a trail for professional women while fending off the advances of smooth-talking building manager Etienne (Pierre Lottin).
While the film offers a glossy, sitcom‑y compendium of recognisable family moments, at the centre is the story of Vincent and his pals managing to rent out and then misplace a mucky video from the local rental store. The prime suspect of the tape theft is Vincent’s rabbi, who is helping him to prepare for his bar mitzvah. Although there’s nothing here that pushes the boat out formally, this is cheat-meal cinema at its most salty and delectable, with some aimiable high-energy turns from Garrel and Cottin. It offers some sage insights into the changing cultural tides and the shift towards more egalitarian parenting methods as the parents discover that the best way to bust young Vincent into line is to simply listen to him.
