Happy Birthday Reviews

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this flick but since it was starring Catherine Deneuve, I thought I might as well check it out. My first thought when I was starting to watch this movie was about the family reunion I have every year not in France but in the Netherlands (I’m half-French, half-Dutch). However, in spite of its (French) title, this movie was not really about the reunion itself but more about the return of Claire and the impacts her return had on her whole family. Basically, even though it was above all obvious with Claire, I think this family was rather dysfunctional. Well, I have seen plenty of US movies dealing with dysfunctional families but most of them usually go for some cheap laughs while French movies like this one feels so much more authentic. On top of that, even though there were quite a lot of characters involved, almost all of them were properly fleshed out. It was also quite interesting to witness the dynamic around Claire. Indeed,  after she throws her first tantrum after being back for only 10 mins, you would probably dismiss her as being some really crazy chick. However, fairly soon, I came to the conclusion that not everything she said was some complete non-sense but, after all these years, nobody was listening to her or was taking her seriously because of her erratic behavior which was quite tragic and actually rather unfair. Coming back on the other characters, even though Rosita had some potential, I’m afraid that Isabel Aimé González-Sola was rather miscast though. Indeed, there is no way such a loser like Romain would manage to get such a gorgeous girl. By the way, I wondered what was the added value of showing some side-boob while she got out of bed. Even more problematic was the fact that, even though Catherine Deneuve was obviously the main draw here, she was actually given too little to do after all. Finally, even though most of it worked fairly well, the ending was a mistake and actually derailed the whole thing. Indeed, it was too far-fetched that Claire had actually spent the 4 previous months with Romain and that nobody else in the family knew about it. Anyway, to conclude, in spite of its flaws, it was still a decent watch though and I think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.