Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis (2008)
Directed by Dany Boon

Film Review

It seems hard to believe that a fairly inconsequential little comedy intended to dispel deeply ingrained prejudices about life in northern France should become the most commercially successful film ever made in France.  On the face of it, there is nothing that can account for the unexpected success of Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis, and yet in 2008 it had such a ferociously magnetic attraction for spectators in France that it became not just a box office hit but the French film that was the biggest hit to date.  It overtook the previous record (17.3 million) held by La Grande vadrouille (a landmark French comedy looking like a forerunner of Allo, Allo) and finally achieved a mind-boggling 20.5 million.  Only one other film performed better than this in France - Titanic in 1997, with an audience of 21.8 million that still appears pretty unassailable.

It's not as if the film's director, Dany Boon, had any great experience of filmmaking before this.  In fact, whilst well-known and well-regarded as a comic actor, he had only directed one previous film, a fairly routine comedy titled La Maison du bonheur (2006).  Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis may be a small step up from this, but it is by no means the quantum leap that public reaction to the film might lead you to think.  (Although, if you compare it with the totally execrable Bronzés 3, which somehow drew 10.4 million spectators two years prior to this, it is virtually a masterpiece.)  Boon had good reason for thinking he had hit the jackpot with his second directorial attempt.  The film cost 11 million euros to make but it took almost a quarter of a million dollars in worldwide receipts - proof, if it be needed, that filmmaking these days is a lottery.

In essence, Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis falls back on that popular standby of French cinema, the classic buddy movie, with its director Boon partnered with rising star Kad Merad.  In his first leading role, Merad shows himself to be a sympathetic clown who is ideally suited to unpretentious populist comedies of this ilk; the ever-likeable Boon is happy to tag along as his comedy foil.  It's a shame that in order to demolish the tired old clichés about the north (some of which are in fact not clichés but grim fact - just take the weather, for instance) Boon has to rely on these, often somewhat lazily, for much of the film's humour.

If there is a well-conceived narrative thread to this film, it is very well concealed.  For the most part it looks like a casually thrown together jumble consisting of sketches that barely hold together as a coherent piece of cinema.  Much of the humour is second-hand and pretty trite, although the engaging personalities of the two lead performers and a handful of surprisingly funny gags prevent it from becoming too wearisome.  A collosal box office hit it may have been, but Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis is nothing more than flimsy ephemera at its most mediocre.  There's no chance of it ever supplanting La Grande vadrouille in the hearts of most French people as the greatest French film comedy.

Film Synopsis

Philippe Abrams lives in a provincial town in the south of France with his habitually depressed wife Julie and is happily employed as a branch manager of the French postal service.  At his wife's insistence, Philippe attempts to get himself transferred to an office in a more attractive location on the Mediterranean coast, but his attempts to do so, by feigning disability, do not impress his employers.  By way of punishment, he gets his transfer, but to an obscure little town named Bergues in the north of France.   For Julie, this is the worst thing that can possibly happen.  Everyone knows what life in the north is like.  It rains incessantly, there are no distractions, and the people are cold and unfriendly.  With his wife insisting on staying behind with their son Raphaël, Philippe undertakes the move to Bergues alone, and his first impressions of the town accord perfectly with his grim expectations.

Philippe's new colleague, Antoine Bailleul, appears friendly enough, but his accent is so thick that he can barely understand a word he says.  Gradually, a friendship develops between the two men and Philippe begins to see another side to the town.  Within a few weeks, the refugee from the sunny south has taken a distinct liking to his new home and finds the locals are nothing like the unwelcoming heathens he had expected.  Naturally, Philippe keeps in touch with his wife by phone, and as the weeks go by he realises that absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

Philippe has not known Julie to be so sympathetic and understanding towards him for years, so he naturally becomes anxious when she expresses a sudden desire to up sticks and join him in the north.  In the hope of putting off his wife, and thereby placing their marriage on a stronger footing, Philippe does his utmost to convince her that life in a northern town is every bit as dire as she thinks.  With Julie's unwanted arrival in Bergues imminent, Philippe enlists the help of his new friends to persuade her that no one in his right mind would ever want to visit the north, let alone live there...