La grande brasserie

The storyline of this movie sounds like something that a 1960s computer might have generated. Old couple, assisted by their younger family and their friends, run a brasserie. They are swindled. The computer hacker son redeems himself by retrieving their money by hacking (this is supposed to be "good"????). In gratitude, they ... well, they do all sorts of predictable cutey stuff. All live happily ever after. Cut to young people dancing in the renovated cafe, with the older couple looking on affectionately.

Written down like that, does that sound like a credible story? No, and watching it in French doesn't make it any more believable, either. What was the writer watching when he/she wrote this? The Brady Bunch?

The atmosphere, the ambience (if you will), even the acting is reasonable; even charming. But it's let down by the silly storyline. As in another French movie that I've reviewed on IMDb, "just because it's French doesn't mean that it's great".

This is a beautiful film. The characters are all real. The actors are all real. The quality of this film is difficult to describe because it is more than the sum of it's parts. It is a slice of real life. The actors are of a sort that we rarely see. They portray a kind of reality that is devoid of ego. There is also a quality of love that is expressed in this film that I have not seen. It is intergenerational. I hope that this will be eventually be released on DVD so that people all over the world can see it. It is the type of film that you would not expect could be made in today's culture of packaged emotion. The plot has merit and is absorbing, but it is the pleasure that one gets by simply being in the presence of these wonderful people that will make you want to revisit this film again and again.