Les Randonneurs (1997) - film review

Five 30-something friends decide to take a break from their busy Parisian lives and head off on an arduous walking tour in the mountains of Corsica.  Their complicated love lives follow them in what proves to be an increasingly fraught nightmare of a holiday.  Louis is anxious about walking out on his latest girlfriend, while Cora, the one who is least suited for a mountain hike, is hankering after Mr Right.  Nadine thinks she has found her man in Eric, their practically minded but somewhat pompous guide, but will he give up his wife and family for her?   Mathieu, meanwhile, has no interest in a long-term relationship but appears to have no problem picking up the chicks.  If the five friends weren’t traumatised at the start of their holiday, they probably will be at the end of it…

Philippe Harel’s third full length film was this well-received comedy in which Harel stars alongside the popular Belgian comedian Benoît Poelvoorde and talented actress Karin Viard.   The adventures of a seemingly ill-matched group of reluctant hikers makes entertaining viewing, although Harel eschews the out-and-out burlesque in favour of convincing character development (the one notable exception being a deliciously funny “silent” sequence which succinctly parodies the whole man-woman thing in the late 20th century).  Not perhaps as daring or as funny as it deserves to be, Les Randonneurs nonetheless offers an amusing, characteristically French take on the American Friends-style comedy.

© James Travers 2006

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