«La Ch'tite famille»: not a very good film

Cinema Wednesdays - Thierry Fivaz

Ten years ago, at the same time, in France and the French-speaking part of Switzerland, we were releasing Welcome to the Ch'tis (2008). The second film by actor and comedian Dany Boon, this now-famous comedy told the story of a Frenchman from the South (Kad Merad) who, to his dismay, is transferred to Bergues, a small town in the North of France, where he meets a kind-hearted Ch'ti (Dany Boon). This revival of the antagonistic tandem and the chemistry that emerged between the two actors immediately brought to mind some of the great successes of French popular cinema - such as La Grande Vadrouille (1966) - and is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the incredible success of this film, which sold twenty million tickets.

But while that formula proved effective in 2008, the one Dany Boon is offering us this year with The Little Family (2018) is much less so. Once again drawing on the Northern accent and its linguistic quirks, Boon’s sixth feature film tells the story of Valentin D. (Dany Boon), A native of the North who moved to Paris to fully pursue his passion and who goes so far as to forget (or rather, deny) his origins. Together with his wife Constance Brandt (Laurence Arné), they form a prominent Parisian design duo—their portfolio includes a three-legged chair that is as unstable as it is uncomfortable, yet has won numerous awards— Valentin, confronted with the snobbery of the creative scene and ashamed of his modest, working-class background, loses his accent, cuts ties with his family, and even goes so far as to claim he is an orphan. This charade will last ten years.

Valentin Loses His Bearings

But not everyone is lucky enough to be an orphan, and as might be expected, it’s at the worst possible moment—during the opening of a retrospective of the couple’s work at the Palais de Tokyo—that the family, with their crude manners and thick Ch’ti accent, bursts into Valentin and Constance’s orderly Parisian life. While the enthusiasm for the family reunion proves to be mixed, the comedy really kicks off when Valentin, violently struck by a car, suffers partial amnesia and believes he is seventeen years old. Faced with this crisis, the newly arrived family pulls together, and with Constance—a model, loving wife whom Valentin, incidentally, has no memory of—they work to help the unfortunate young man regain his memory.

Crazy Mirrors

If The Little Family, Like all of Boon’s films, it is full of good intentions; however, we might wonder whether the tribute the director-actor seems to be paying to his native region is truly one. Indeed, in The Little Family, People from the north are portrayed solely as crude, vulgar, intellectually limited, and financially motivated. For while the little family officially arrives in Paris to celebrate the 80th birthday of Valentin’s mother (played by a cold and unendearing Line Renaud), it is also—and above all—because Gustave—Valentin’s brother (Guy Lecluyse)—and his wife (Valérie Bonneton) want Valentin to lend them a few thousand euros.

As for the Parisians, they’re no better off; to repeat the usual cliché, they’re nothing but venal, superficial, and excessively snobbish people—just like Constance’s father and Valentin’s stepfather, Alexander Brandt (François Berléand). However, while playing with stereotypes—exaggerating and distorting them—can sometimes help to better deconstruct them and thus provoke laughter and amusement, The Little Family Instead of playing with these clichés, he manipulates them clumsily and thus seems to reinforce them.

A strange mix of genres

As for the movie's title, while it might lead one to believe that it is a sequel to Welcome to the Ch'tis, it has to be said that we’re a long way from that, both in terms of the comedy’s pace—which is really sluggish—and its humor; the “ch’ti” jokes from The Little Family quickly become trite, and one even begins to wonder if the director hadn't already explored everything in this first film set in northern France.

Finally, in recent interviews, Dany Boon has stated that The Little Family is a very personal film. You can really sense that the director poured himself into it, but by trying to put too much of himself into it, he loses some clarity. The film jumps all over the place, shifting from (almost) dramatic comedy to zany comedy to comedy of manners; it’s almost too much to handle, and you’d almost be tempted to dip your Maroille cheese in its at his café.

Write to the author: thierry.fivaz@leregardlibre.com

Photo credit: © Pathé Films