Product Description

A warm, bittersweet comedy The Grocer s Son markets the feature debut of acclaimed documentary filmmaker Eric Guirado, and new acting talent Nicolas Cazale. Thirty-year-old Antoine leaves Paris and reluctantly returns to the south of France to look after the family mobile grocery van while his father recovers from a heart attack. He gradually warms to his experience in the hills and his encounters with the villagers and love for the countryside. Evocatively capturing the bucolic beauty of provincial France, this gentle feel-good charmer sparkles with quirky humour and joie de vivre and guarantees to warm hearts with its classic story of a man finally coming of age.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #838 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-07-06
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: French
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 96 minutes

Synopsis
Antoine is a thirtysomething Parisian who leaves the city behind to travel to the South of France in order to look after the family grocery van, while his father recovers from a heart attack. Apprehensive of his surroundings at first, Antoine soon discovers what has been missing from his life.

Customer Reviews

Lessons in life and love
Sulky, indifferent, wayward, son Antoine reluctantly agrees to run his sick father's grocery business. Elder son Francois is far too busy trying to make good in his hairdressing salon and feels he's done enough already. Antoine is accompanied to the south of France by a neighbour, Claire, under the pretext that she would find it easier to study in the countryside, rather than in the hustle and bustle of Paris.

Antoine's utter ineptitude and inability to relate to the elderly, rustic clientele prompts Claire to develop an interest in the travelling grocery side of the business. Meanwhile, the story fairly crackles with the dialogue of family dysfunction, batting back and forth between the characters like a mountain thunder storm. Claire is a hapless by-stander as the grocer's wife does her best to retain her dignity, while the men snipe at each other.

By contrast the scenery is stunning, showing the beauty of this mountainous region of France. The aging customers served by The Van are full of life, humour, vigour and eccentricity, and there are many well-observed and humorous moments.

A `will they, won't they' theme develops between Antoine and Claire. It is tantalisingly drawn out across most of the film, adding suspense to the other tensions and frictions between expertly portrayed characters. The inept and gruff male characters are mercilessly harangued and tripped by the female characters in an attempt to make them see sense and change their views of life and relationships. Will it ever dawn on the father and his sons that the reason they have trouble with other people is their own stubborn fault?

A delightful, sweet, compelling drama. You can not fail to be delighted.

Feel good French film
The Grocer's Son is a wonderfully enjoyable tale.... a real feel good movie that will leave you with a smile.

Thwarted expectations
I bought this DVD on the strength of the product blurb and other reviews but I have to say I was disappointed. Only in the last ten minutes did it take a rather implausible upturn and then only because it was such a relief that the lead character showed some signs of coming out of full sulk-mode. Except for the mother the family would not have been out of place in an English soap for general unpleasantness and as for the "hero" - he seemed to be prolonging small-boy tantrums and adolescent surliness into early middle age.

The scenery is beautiful and if you want to be reminded of the sunshine in the middle of an English winter it would fill the bill but not if you want a film with characters in whom the milk of human kindness remains uncurdled.

I will watch it again in the hope of finding some redeeming features which were not apparent on first viewing but I have the feeling that the central character will leave me with the same sense of irritation as before.