Demain tout commence (2016)
Directed by Hugo Gélin

Film Review

After the worldwide success of Intouchables (2011), Omar Sy didn't have to wait too long for invitations to come flooding in from American film producers.  So far Sy's Hollywood film career isn't much to write home about - just a few minor roles in star-studded action movies like Jurassic World (2015) and Inferno (2016).  Meanwhile, back in France, his screen  career is flourishing and the healthy performance of Demain tout commence at the French box office in 2016 is testament to the actor's crowd-pulling potential.  If the plot appears familiar that is probably because the film is an exact remake of Eugenio Derbez's 2013 Mexican hit Instructions Not Included (2013).  Sy's presence in the lead role, as the perpetual bachelor who implausibly becomes addicted to fatherhood, is enough to make this derivative feel-good comedy a box office winner - in France at least.

Hugo Gélin directs the film with the same reckless gusto that he brought to his debut offering, Comme des frères (2012), and if there's one thing it doesn't lack it's an irresistible sense of fun - at least in its less lachrymose interludes.  Demain tout commence makes a pretty determined stab at combining tearjerker and bubbly comedy but, saddled with a pretty inept script and some unfortunate casting choices it struggles to pass muster as even the most mundane kind of family entertainment.  After a breezy opening, which shows Sy at his comedic best, the film starts to go off the rails when the location switches from the sunny Riviera to a London that is much nearer to the crude French stereotype than the real thing.  With the possible exception of the Belgians, there is no nationality the French love to caricature more than the English, and this is painfully evident in the film's second half.

Even allowing for the lapse of eight years, it is hard to take seriously the dramatic transformation we see in the main characters, and not even Sy can sell his conversion from wayward pleasure-seeker to devoted father.  Clémence Poésy has the most challenging role as the most irresponsible mother on earth, and if she looks like a villainness blithely lifted from a Walt Disney cartoon (Cruella de Vil spings to mind) that's probably because that is how her character is written.  Demain tout commence is the kind of low-grade, emotion-manipulating pap that tends to perform spectacularly well at the box office in France, so it's popularity is hardly a surprise.  But lacking in genuine human feeling and characters that have more depth than a postage stamp the film is unlikely to appeal to true connoisseurs of French comedy.

Film Synopsis

Samuel is happy with his life as a carefree bachelor on the French Riviera.  With no family commitments to tie him down he is as free as the wind, and has no intention of changing the way he lives.  All this is put in jeopardy when one of Samuel's brief liaisons shows up unexpectedly and dumps an eight month old baby, Gloria, in his lap.  Deciding that fatherhood is definitely not for him, Samuel hurries off to London in a desperate bid to find the baby's mother and return it to her.  Eight years later, Samuel and Gloria are happily settled in the British capital and have become inseparable.  He has a good income, working as a stuntman for a popular television programme, and wouldn't part with his daughter for anything in the world.  But then the child's mother puts in another appearance, only this time she is determined to regain custody of her daughter...