Les Sous-doués en vacances (1982) - film review

Bébel is looking forward to his holiday with his American girlfriend, but when she dumps him at the airport he ends up living in a tent in Paris.  He gets a job testing the “Love Computer”, an invention which popular singer, Memphis, hopes to use to find his ideal woman and promote his career.  Through the Love Computer, Bébel discovers his perfect mate, a linguist Claudine, whose twin sister Hélène has just run off with her boyfriend.  Memphis is convinced that Claudine is the girl for him, and, realising that she only has eyes for Bébel, tricks her into believing that Bébel is a rampant homosexual.  When Claudine abandons him to stay with Memphis in Saint-Tropez, Bébel rounds up his former college friends and sets about trying to win her back.

After the success of Les Sous-doués , the film which established Daniel Auteuil as a popular comic actor in France, a sequel was more than justified and, if anything, that sequel proved to be better than the first film. Les Sous-doués en vacances is a laugh-a-minute comedy which is replete with visual jokes (the best example probably being the infamous “Jaws” send-up), bizarre comic situations and quick-fire one-liners.  The comedy works much better than in the first Sous-doués films, principally because it is less constrained by its setting – jokes about holidays are presumably far easier to come by than jokes about taking an exam.

Fans of Daniel Auteuil are rewarded by a typically robust performance – his skill at playing luckless Romeos making his the most sympathetic character in the film.   Other lead parts are played by attractive debutante Grace de Capitani (who actually has two roles in the film – one silly indulgence we should have been spared) and Guy Marchand, a popular actor/singer whose musical number ("Destinée") lends the film a certain kitsch charm.

© James Travers 2003

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