This film is a gentle watch with all the right ingredients that make French movies such a pleasure. For a start the main character is pretty easy on the eye and the female counterpart is not bad either. The plot is nothing too heavy or violent with just the right amount of emotional angst to keep me happy.
Prodigal son Antoine, returns reluctantly to help run the family small business after his father is bed ridden with a stroke. He must drive his father’s mobile van to the nearby remote villages and fill the grocery orders of the locals – much to his distaste and boredom. He has no interest in this languishing trade and makes it very apparent to his elderly customers. With time and a little help from his love interest Claire, he learns humility and some worthy life lessons. The relationships in the film are beautifully developed and subtle – it is often more about what is not said than what is.
This film was a surprise box office success in France and the winner of several prestigious European awards and is simply about re-discovering life and love and becoming enamoured with the French countryside.
Short of a little vacation, this is the next best thing, xv.
