Le Petit Nicolas

Last Thursday I was required to go to a movie for French class. I of course chose the adorable kids movie over the other, more depressing choices.

In my high-school French class, we read the book "Le Petit Nicolas" (A very famous French children's chapter book). I loved the stories of Nicolas and his friends. I thought that the illustrations of Sempe (famous French illustrator) were adorable. It had been a few years since I had read the book, so I was a bit fuzzy on the details. Before I left for France, I knew I might buy it for a souvenir.

The book was written in the 1950s and it centers around the trivial events in a 7-year-old boy's life. Each chapter of the book was a different story. For example, the boys try to buy their teacher a present, or Nicolas's dad wants to have his boss over for dinner. Everything is told from Nicolas's perspective and it's very funny.

In my second week here, I saw a movie poster advertising for the film version of "Le Petit Nicolas". Every time I waited for the metro, I would laugh to myself and look for characters I recognized. I recognized the teacher, Nicolas's parents, and Alceste Nicolas's fat friend. Each of them was exactly as I imagined. I knew I really needed to see this movie!

I went to the movie with a bunch of friends who also had this assignment. We had just taken an exam for a different class, and everyone felt like going to do something fun. We stopped and ate pizza then went to a theater pretty close to our school.

The chairs in the theater were amazing. Soft red velvet and way more comfortable than anything in the U.S. A few of my friends were afraid that they were going to accidently fall asleep during the movie.

There were some pretty bizarre advertisements. One for Evian water featured rollerskating babies. Creepy, yet pretty funny. The lights dimmed even more and the movie started.

The first scene is Nicolas's class getting their photo taken.


The characters are pretty much as follows:
Nicolas: main character
Alceste: Nicolas's best friend who is really fat and is always eating. They did a good job of this in the film because he is literally eating in every scene.
Geoffroy: The rich kid whose dad gives him fancy toys and who has tons of costumes that he comes to school in.
Agnan: The teacher's pet and all-around tattle-tale. In the book (and a little in the movie) the other boys try really hard to break his glasses. Please look at the above poster, find the boy with round glasses and tell me that, without the dorky glasses, he does not look like a super young, scrawny version of my boyfriend Alex. I laughed every time I saw him.
Rufus: A friend who's dad is a police officer and so he thinks everything he does is right
Clotaire: The stupid kid in the class who is constantly sent to stand in the corner. He really wants to nothing but ride his bike.

I won't spoil the entire plot, but the main story is that Nicolas is afraid that his mom is pregnant, and that with a new baby his parents will get rid of him. The whole film is based around him doing things that will make his parents want to keep him instead of a baby brother.

I really liked the movie for the realism it showed in family dynamics. Nicolas's mom and dad fight (often) over insignificant things, both parents get mad at him at times, but in the end they end up laughing hysterically around the dinner table.

The acting and casting were great. Even though I couldn't understand every word, I still laughed the entire time. I hope it will come out on DVD in the U.S.!