Les Tuche (2011)
Directed by Olivier Baroux

Film Review

After starting out as a successful radio presenter and comedian (for a time forming an effective double act with Kad Merad), Olivier Baroux made a successful transiton to comic actor, showing box office appeal in such films as Éric Lartigau's Mais qui a tué Pamela Rose? (2003) and Patrick Braoudé's Iznogoud (2005).  It was in 2007 that he made a promising directorial debut with Ce soir je dors chez toi (2007), and four years later he had his first notable success with Les Tuche (2011), a lowbrow kind of social comedy which seems to owe a great deal to the American animated sitcom, The Simpsons.

Les Tuche has little in the way of originality.  It's humdrum tale of an ordinary French family suddenly made rich by an unexpected windfall makes it a familiar culture clash comedy, and whilst it is enthusiastically performed by a likeable cast, it falls way short of its potential as a mainstream entertainment.  As ever, Jean-Paul Rouve and Isabelle Nanty can be relied upon to salvage any third rate comedy, and they manage to keep Baroux's spluttering comedy going, in spite of a script that lacks inspiration and good taste in abundance.  Few of the gags - most of the politically incorrect variety -  hit their mark and Baroux's idea of humour (glib and facile) soon becomes wearisome. 

Despite being malled by the critics on its first release, the film was a moderate commercial success, attracting an audience of 1.5 million in France.  It attracted six times that audience when it was subsequently screened on television, thereby guaranteeing a long string of sequels.  So far, Les Tuche 2: Le Rêve américain (2016) and Les Tuche 3 (2018) have both enjoyed considerable success at the French box office, and a third sequel, Les Tuche 4, is in preparation, scheduled for release in 2020.

Film Synopsis

The Tuches are a perfect example of a famille débrouillarde - a family that always manages to get by in spite of what life throws at it.  If there was a university course on 'System D', they would all graduate with honours.  The Tuches may be poor but they are happy with what they have, and are grateful that they have not had to work for it.  Work is not part of the Tuche way - not when there are other, more dignified ways of obtaining money.  Living on state handouts and whatever else they can lay their hands on, Jeff, Cathey and their three children lead a modest but contented life in their hometown of Bouzolles in northern France.  The Tuches' harmonious existence is suddenly thrown into disarray on the fatal day they win a hundred million euros on the euro-lottery.

Now that this typical French family has more money than it knows what to do with, life suddenly becomes far more complicated.  Of course, being rich, they have to live the life of rich folk.  So, without giving the matter much thought, they up sticks and move en masse to Monaco, to enjoy the millionaire lifestyle in the place that Cathy has long dreamed of living.  Sudden wealth takes some getting used to, and the Tuches have some difficulty adapting to their new life.  There's no more scrimping and scraping now - just unbridled excess!  You would have thought that having so much money the Tuches would have no difficulty getting themselves in with the jet-set.  But, no.  They may have oodles of cash, but they lack a certain - je ne sais quoi.  It's no easy thing being both filthy rich and totally ignorant, as the family soon discover to their cost...