Dorathen Better Late Then Never

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

TheOneAndOnlyCMC The Grocer's Son was a wonderful trip through a small French village. I enjoyed the movie very much. It felt as if I was also a local villager. I love the transformation of the main character from a self-centered egotist to someone who genuinely cares for the villagers along his route. There were many nice things that Antoine does for the older customers that make their lives more bearable, from repairing the chicken coupe, to carrying groceries to the home of a woman recently released from the hospital to extending credit and giving rides. Antoine comes full circle and is rewarded in the end with the return of Claire. Great story and great film-making!

carlyvo All French movies are either about sex or sons reconnecting with their fathers. This one is mostly about the latter.The powers-that-IMD-be demand eight more lines of text.It's a charming movie well-described in these other reviews. The plot, simple as it is, is contrived. But you won't mind. The acting is lovely, as are the actors. They're charming. The countryside is charming. The grocery truck is charming. Even the little grocery items-sausages on strings and juniper pate- are charming. It made me nostalgic for the summer jobs of my youth. France's answer to "Adventureland."

writers_reign Those who seek to compare and contrast, trace lineage etc will cite as distinguished forbears of The Grocer's Son such titles as Une Hirodelle a fait le printemps, Le Grand chemin etc on the grounds that all three titles feature an urban protagonist either choosing or being obliged to move to a rural setting. Writer-director Eric Guirado throws us a curve inasmuch as HIS protagonist Antoine (Nicilas Cazale) had it up to here with Rural some ten years before the story starts and lit out for Paris where he has been drifting from dead-end job to dead-end job although Antoine would probably argue 'okay, I'm getting nowhere but I'm doing it in Paris, man'. Things change when his autocratic father, Daniel Duval, suffers a heart attack and Antoine very reluctantly agrees to return home and help his mother run the family grocery business, specifically by driving the mobile grocery van to the outlying hamlets that rely on it. His intitial contempt for the customers gradually turns to respect, admiration, affection and yes, even love, end of story. It is, of course, so much more than that and Guirado brings his documentary experience to bear and draws his cast from professional actors - none more distinguished than Paul Crauchet - and ordinary people thus creating a seamless blend of docu-drama replete with sub-plots like the brother who conceals from his family the fact that his wife has left him for some time and is now pregnant by another man, and the love interest, Clotilde Hesme, the divorcée of whom Antoine is enamoured. Purists may argue that Guirado tends to 'sell' the virtues of rural living and ignore the harsher realities explored so brilliantly in the recent documentary La Vie Moderne, and they would be correct so far as it goes but this remains a wonderfully lyrical film that should not be missed.

jean-walker-1 Loved this film. Maybe the last reviewer was out of the room at the time but all of the questions mentioned below WERE answered in the film as far as I'm concerned. I guess some people want more up front than French films are sometimes willing to give. The viewer is left to do a little brain work them self and that's fine by me. It's like any good novel - you don't have to be given all the answers all of the time - it leaves no room for the imagination. The scenery was gorgeous, the characters believable - what's wrong with being a male hairdresser in a small French village? And the unfolding of the relationships was as subtle as they often are in European movies. But if you don't like subtle and slow, don't go.