Nos plus belles vacances (2012)
Directed by Philippe Lellouche

Film Review

For his feature debut as a director, Philippe Lellouche (the older brother of actor Gilles Lellouche) revisits his happy childhood in this shameless nostalgia piece set during that memorably long hot summer of 1976.  It's a familiar subject, and Lellouche's film, whilst charming for the most part, adds absolutely nothing to what has already been said by at least a hundred other film directors.   Whilst the designers deserve credit for giving it an authentic 1970s feel, the film's portrayal of Brittany is so shockingly caricatured that it soon becomes slightly nauseating.  Nos plus belles vacances is a sincerely crafted piece of cinema, but lacking in depth, humour and originality it is instantly forgettable.

Film Synopsis

When she discovers that her husband Claude is having an adulterous affair, Isabelle insists they take a holiday together in her home village in Brittany.  It is 1976, and when the couple take their reconciliation holiday, in the company of their two sons and Isabelle's mother, it is during one of the longest heat waves on record.   The day after their arrival, they meet up with two couples whom they can count amount their friends - Bernard and Bernadette, and Jacky and Marie-France.  The little village of Rocher Abraham isn't the most accommodating of places to visit, as Claude and his entourage soon discover.  It doesn't help that he is an Algerian Jew, who settled in France in the early 1960s...