Le Petit Nicolas (2009)
Directed by Laurent Tirard

Film Review

After Astérix, Iznogoud and Lucky Luke, le Petit Nicolas is the latest of René Goscinny's creations to make it to the big screen, albeit half a century too late.  Unlike Goscinny's other famous comic book characters, who have a timeless appeal, Little Nicolas is well and truly anchored in the past.  In fact, to today's hyper-cool, über-sophisticated youngsters, he must look rather like something from another planet.  It is no accident that Laurent Tirard's adaptation is set in the 1960s.  Unfortunately, the film also feels as if it was made in the same decade.  The film lacks the tongue-in-cheek parodic tone of Goscinny and Sempé's famous book and feels so bizarrely anachronistic that you half suspect it may have just popped out of a wormhole in the fabric of time-and-space.

Dated and twee as the film undoubtedly is, this didn't prevent it from being a colossal success when it was first released in 2009.  The biggest box office hit of the year in France, it attracted an audience of five and a half million, easily putting it within the most successful 100 French films of all time.    The film's appeal for a French audience is probably not too hard to account for.   The nostalgia element is certainly a factor (nobody who pored over the book in childhood's happy hour could possibly resist seeing the film), but there are other attractions - Valérie Lemercier, Kad Merad and Sandrine Kiberlain to name just three, aided and abetted by old school luminaries Michel Duchaussoy, Daniel Prévost, Michel Galabru and Anémone.

With so much star power behind it, the film could hardly fail.  Yet the real stars of the film are none of the above but rather its cast of remarkably talented child actors, who have no trouble stealing the show from their more illustrious co-stars (particularly as most of the latter over-act shamefully).  Maxime Godart is devastatingly cute as the eponymous Nicholas, although the fact that he does look and sound like a real eight-year-old (whereas most of today's eight-year-olds behave like post-pubescent teenagers) is a little creepy.  One of the quirks of this film is that the child actors are generally a lot more convincing, and much funnier, than their grown-up counterparts.

The main redeeming feature of Le Petit Nicolas is that it doesn't try to be funnier than it is.  There is a disturbing tendency for today's filmmakers to try to make comedies as off-the-wall as possible, and in doing so merely give the impression that they are aiming for an audience with a mental age of five.   Director Laurent Tirard just manages to avoid going down this path and delivers a respectable family film that doesn't insult the intelligence of its audience.  Whether the film will attract much interest outside France remains to be seen.

An inoffensive whimsical comedy, this is certainly a striking contrast with Tirard's previous films, which include the superlative rom-com Mensonges et trahisons et plus si affinities (2004) and the lavish period piece Molière (2007).  Tirard's knack of turning out well-made films with box office appeal augurs well for a long and successful career.   His next film, Astérix chez les Bretons, will undoubtedly continue this trend (my money is on this being the biggest French hit of 2011).

Film Synopsis

Nicholas is a good-natured little boy who could not be happier.  He has a mother and father who dote on him and plenty of friends to play with.  Life could not be better.  But then, one terrible day, Nicholas overhears his parents having a private conversation which leads him to think that his mother is expecting another baby.  It is the worst thing the boy could imagine!  Now that his parents have a new child to occupy them Nicholas will become a redundant accessory to their lives.  He will be taken off to the woods and abandoned, like some unfortunate in a fairy tale.  The only way to prevent this from happening is for Nicholas to make himself indispensable around the home.  But, however hard he tries, he only succeeds in making life hell for his parents.  In the end, there is only one option left open to Nicholas.  He must get rid of the troublesome baby before it has a chance to replace him...