Mon père, ce héros

This French movie was re-made only two years later by Disney (so this is as close as I've ever come to reviewing a Disney movie). The story is about a divorced French father (Gerard Depardieu) who takes his resentful adolescent daughter (Marie Gillain) on a beach vacation. It starts out as kind of a farce when his daughter tells everyone at the resort that her father is actually her much older lover, but it turns much more sentimental and sweet when she meets a boy close to her own age, and her father is forced to realize that she's growing up and he has to let her go. There's no doubt this movie is less saccharine and cloying than the American Disney version, but it is also much more innocent and "family-friendly" than most French "coming-of-age-on-the-beach" movies like Eric Rohmers "Pauline on the Breach" or Catherine Breillat's "Fillete 36". This movie is actually completely appropriate for teenagers--except that American teenagers, of course, cannot be called on to read subtitles, thus the unnecessary Hollywood re-make.

Gerard Depardieu (who also starred in the re-make) is quite good in the role of the father. It's quite easy to accept Depardieu as a kind of Gallic Robert Deniro, but his status as a sex symbol is perhaps a little more baffling. Here though at least he keeps his clothes on (thank god) and he doesn't really romance any improbably attractive women. Improbably attractive, however, is a good description of the actress, Marie Gillain, who plays the daughter. She was probably sixteen or seventeen here, but could have easily passed for twenty, and with the revealing swimwear she models, she would probably have a pack of slobbering guys following her everywhere even in France (or perhaps especially in France). It's a little hard therefore to buy her as a shy, awkward fourteen-year-old working up to her first kiss. She gives a game performance though, and whereas her equivalent in the American version, Katherine Heigl, would go onto "Gray's Anatomy" and many horrible Hollywood romantic comedies, each more horrible than the last, Gillain has had a more low-profile, but much more interesting career.

This would make a good companion piece either to other fairly "family-friendly" movies with Depardieu like "Cyrano", or to other Gallic teen flicks fit for a high school French class like "La Boum". Not my usual cup of tea, given the Disney connection, but I'd still recommend it.

We love the movie and so do Australian high school students of French! Could you please let us know how to purchase the original DVD version (in French), preferably Region 4 so that we can watch it here? I am a French teacher and the old video copy that I have of this wonderful, fun and, as the students say, "cool" film is getting more than a little worn out. It is wonderful to see Mauritius which appears to be really beautiful in the film. I could easily enough purchase the American version but no thank you....the French one is so unreal. We love the story of the teenage girl coming to terms with the situation her parents are in as well as her first fling with a boyfriend. We're desperate to purchase this film on DVD!

"Mon père ce héros" is a quote of Victor Hugo, the most famous French poet of all time. And although the movie is very realistic, kind of true-to-life situation, it is full of poetry. It shows one more time that Love is a big awkward thing for everyone. It is a very nice comedy, rather funny and moving. The movie helps to realize the gap existing between a father and a 14-year-old teenager. All the actors (not only Depardieu And Marie Gillain) are sincere while the main subject is "lies" !! I deeply recommend you to see this film and not its remake - a bit too tasteless (actually the dialogs are exactly the same). However, if you want to spend a good time in front of your telly, I believe Mon père ce Héros to be the perfect choice.

{quote by Nicholas}I actually discovered that there were two versions of this film, both by the same director, both including Gérard Depardieu, but in the first one, most of the actors are French and it is set on the Isle of Mauritius, and the second, the characters bar Depardieu are mostly American and the film is set in the West Indies or Bahamas but not Mauritius. Why make two films with the same plot ? I just don't know.

In my opinion, the better of the two was the first one which is set in Mauritius. Unfortunately, this one is NOT available on DVD and the other IS !! I bought the DVD, thinking I was getting the FIRST but got the SECOND ! Very confusing, especially when the main actor is the same person.

I preferred the characters in the first film and found it funnier..but that is of course just personal judgment. I was also pleased to see shots of Mauritius which is a lovely place. In the first film, Depardieu was speaking French, his native language, in the second he was speaking English ......he was obviously less at ease in the humorous situations !! To understand this you need to be able to speak French and, more important, heard Depardieu get irritated in his mother tongue. It's indescribably funny and cannot be translated into another language. That's what I think clinches it for this first of the two films !!

_________________________

Was Marie Gillain also in both movies ?

I actually saw this two summers ago in China, I saw a chinese dubbed version, but it was good nonetheless. The first thing to love about this movie is the theme soundtrack that it starts with. I've been trying to get a hold of it ever since. If anyone can help me, please email. Anyway, I loved the movie. Even though a lot of jokes probably got lost in the translation, I still enjoyed the movie very much. It's a very charming film, one of the best foreign films I've ever watched (and I watched a lot of good foreign language films, from Stalingrad to Au revoir les enfants) The dad is truely great in this movie, he puts up with so much, my dad would kick my ass for 1/100 of that. Veronique is great too, not many people have the guts to pull somethign liek that off.