Liberté-Oléron

Because of an always increasing talent, we often wait impatiently for a new movie by the Podalydès brothers. For "Liberté-Oléron" (2001), this waiting beard fruit. This is perhaps an easier and more conventional movie than "Dieu seul me voit" (1998) but it's much funnier. You can guess in it a satire of the tourists that go on holiday.

The Podalydès brothers take back the comical recipes that assured them their reputation: situation comedy with embarrassing situations for the characters, especially Denis Podalydès and the other strong point is, of course dialogs with powerful cues.

If the allusions to Tintin are less numerous (the name of the small boat is "Zigomar" which is a Captain Haddock's insult, Denis and Bruno Podalydès have scattered their script with quite a lot of gags that make the movie refreshing even if some of them have got nothing new and make a few situations predictable.

As for Denis Podalydès, he's absolutely amazing in his role of greedy and selfish family father. It's only a pity that his performance is sometimes on the verge of third-rate acting.

So, "Liberté-Oléron" in spite of its weaknesses constitutes a real moment of happiness and the Podalydès brothers are people to follow in French cinema.

Let's forget 15 Aout which was released a few months ago. Here is another sea holiday comedy, but a much better one. Even though there's nothing original to revel in here, the depiction of this middle-class French family is so accurate that it becomes funny! Anybody can recognize a situation he has already lived. A god mirror to our lives and therefore as we poke fun of the awkward patriarch, we make fun of something not that far from what we have already lived or maybe of what we are in a certain way. Really funny.