aka COTE D’AZUR aka CRUSTACeS ET COQUILLAGES
Movie Review by Alice Castle
Starring: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Gilbert Melki, Jean-Marc Barr, Jacques Bonnaffe
Directors: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
This film has it all if you’re a fan of the subtle French farce. Fun and laughter, romance and even a good old song and dance number at the end. It’s summer in the Cote d’Azur, and Marc and his family are spending the deliciously languid days in the family’s farmhouse, newly inherited from an old aunt. With nothing much to keep the mind busy, Marc, his wife Beatrix and teenage children Laura and their son Charly have only the body and its functions to think about. There’s time to enjoy culinary treats (crustaces et coquillages) and the natural partner of the unoccupied mind enjoying sun and sea – sex.
There’s seventeen year-old Charly and his teenage libido which involves taking half-an-hour showers for a hand-shandy several times a day. His newly-outed gay friend Martin whose hoping to find some summer cruising action. Nineteen year-old Laura off to Spain with her leather-clad biker boyfriend. And even mother Beatrix, whose lover arrives unannounced on the TGV because he can’t do without sex for the summer. Plenty of room for risky quickies in the shrubbery and the odd secluded beach cove.
And where does it leave husband Marc? Not where you expect. Happily married and macho in a mechanicky sort of way – Marc’s history is back to haunt him.
