Mon père, ce héros (1991) - film review

When his girlfriend walks out on him, André takes his 14 year old daughter, Véronique, on a luxury holiday in Mauritius.   Despite her father’s best efforts to keep his daughter away from unsavoury looking young men, Véronique strikes up a friendship with an attractive young surfer, Benjamin.  To impress her new boyfriend, Véronique concocts an increasingly far-fetched story about her father.  When he finds out, André agrees to back up his daughter’s story, but with some embellishments of his own...

The complexities of the problematic relationship between a middle-aged father and his teenage daughter are skilfully interwoven with coming of age themes in this engaging French comedy, sensitively scripted and directed by Gérard Lauzier.  Even though the story occasionally ambles into dangerous territory (with the blithe insouciance of a drunk crossing a minefield) - a key plot point being that the central character is mistaken for a paedophile - Mon père, ce héros is an astute, at times blisteringly perceptive, study in how a father and his daughter relate to one another at the point when the latter begins to become aware of her sexual identity.    

The sense of loss felt by the father at this traumatic time in their lives is beautifully conveyed by Gérard Depardieu in one of his more authentic screen portrayals, whilst Marie Gillain - stunning in her first screen role - perfectly captures that perilous concoction of childlike naivety and nascent sexual awareness.  The sumptuous location setting provides an appropriate Garden of Eden backdrop for a story that is fundamentally about the loss of innocence, the transition from playful ignorance to a more mature understanding of the world, for both the daughter and her father.  Despite its light surface texture, the film deals with some complex and important issues and is a much darker and more profound work than it initially appears.  

Whilst the film is punctuated by moments of intense poignancy, Mon père, ce héros also offers some great comedy.  The sight of a tragically overweight Depardieu struggling hopelessly to master the art of wind surfing is hilarious beyond belief, although there is almost as much humour to be found in the repartee between the two main characters.  The film owes much of its charm and emotional power to the genuine warmth in the on-screen rapport between Depardieu and Gillain, something which elevates a merely average romantic comedy to the level of a classic love story, in which a father and his daughter realise that they must soon part and head off in different directions, such is the course of life.    

The unexpected success of Mon père, ce héros in France and abroad resulted in an American remake three years later, My Father the Hero.  Directed by  Steve Miner (who started out by making such lowbrow horror films as Friday the 13th Part 2 and House), the film paired Gérard Depardieu, reprising his role from Lauzier’s film, with Katherine Heigl.  Needless to say, it is not a patch on the original film and merely exacerbates the minor flaws in that film to an almost unbearable degree.  One of the supplementary delights of Mon père, ce héros - the icing on the gateau, you might say - is that the two principals were hired to sing the songs which accompany the opening and closing credits.  Marie Gillain sings the suitably spunky Sans mensonge at the top of the film, with the same gamine precociousness that defines her character in the film, whilst Depardieu closes the film with his soulful rendition of the bossa nova song Ça va...  Why neither of them went on to have a hit music career after this remains a complete mystery.

© James Travers 2010

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