La guerre des miss

As a harmless, moderately funny suburbia comedy, very much in the British tradition of Full Monty, Calender Girls, etc.,La Guerre des Miss is fine and passes the time fairly pleasantly. However, coming from a director of Patrice Lecaonte's stature, who's given us gems such as Ridicule and The Hairdresser's Husband, this is a major let down & disappointment.

The thin and fairly predictable storyline concerns a bitter rivalry between two adjacent French villages, one affluent & the other struggling. An annual local beauty contest, which the affluent village has won consistently, becomes the film's point of conflict and the hub of the story. In a desperate attempt to match their affluent neighbours practice of bringing in beauty consultants to coach their candidates, the best the struggling villagers can come up with is to invite Franck, one of their old boys, whose greatest claim to fame is appearing as an extra on French TV movies, to coach their girls. Franck's attempts at getting the girls in shape for the contest, and his relationship with an old flame, create an amusing and diverting hour and a half. Fans of Patrice Leconte however may be disappointed and could not be blamed for having higher expectations.

For the fans of « Twin Peaks », this movie is a must-see as it has the same small town(s) setting and in addition the same public contest ! So we can see the similar facts but also the big differences in cultures and production. In a way, it was also close to « je fais le mort » as it's about a anonymous Parisian who returns to his country to become popular ! Those kinds of movies really speaks to me actually as i felt the same desire to go back to my roots.

So, this is an enjoyable movie, doped by an hilarious Benoit. In addition, he finds a great feminine team of a mother and her teen daughter. If the movie is funny, i expected more from Leconte who is was in the 80s a big name for this genre. I don't understand why he toned down the movie and the creativity of Benoit as the long making-of (50 mn for 89 mn to the movie) clearly shows that everyone laughed very much every day !