Le Gamin au velo ***, Les Tuche**

Le Gamin au velo ***
realist adolescent and kindness of foster friend/family, friendship, parental love

A very finely crafted subtle film about a boy growing up.
Abandonned by his father - a young good looking guy who abandonned his teenage son to work in an ordinary restaurant as cook w his girl friend, he does not want to see his son. The film maker shows the father as an honest man, but he has problems, he cannot keep his son with him, he does not want to see him. His son must find his own way. The son was then kept in a school for children without parents or a government run place for young adults without family. He runs away all the time, and grabbed onto a woman at a doctors office. Shes a hair dresser, a nice good looking ordinary 30ish woman. At the boys request, she accepted to be his foster family over the weekend. Doing this means she has to give up some of her own privacy, deal w sharing attention of her boyfriend with this young boy whos a problem case. She buys his bike back for him. He gets into "dealer" friend problems, they practiced before hand to rob a bookshop. Succeeded, but the owner saw the boys face. So his dealer "friend" dropped him shouted at him. Boy feels betrayed, he did it for friendship not for money. So since he has this money, he goes to his fathers work place to offer him this stolen money. He tells his father it is stolen money maybe could be more useful for his father. Father pushed him away, throws the stack of cash back and tells him not to come back dont get him into jail for this kind of thing. He got caught, and hairdresser agrees to pay for him in 20 installment the damages caused by the boy to the bookshop keeper.

The film goes into great details about what happens, how one thing leads to another. The little gestures of friendship the hairdresser has for the boy. Very subtle, for example. In a car, he said he wants some water, so she is driving, but she hands him a bottle as he takes it she doesnt let go, he tries again, she holds onto the bottle; this type of "taquine" teasing is very common in everyday life, it shows a friendly jokey play.

Throughout the movie there are little small sweet moments like these, and finally she accepts him to be his a full time foster family.

The human softness of the director, the attention to details. For example the dealer himself was like this boy, he has a sick grandma at home, and is kind to her. Takes care of her needs, why did she fall? What channels she wants to watch on tv? All these delinquent kids are not bad, but somehow along the way, something turned bad for them.

Cecile de france is a v gd actress. Very natural, and in this movie, she is not shown as a cutesy innocent pretty thing but a real flesh and blood young woman, she shows him as an adult what is right, wrong. How to discipline softly unlike her boyfriend who is kind of rough. She has the right stuff. Not too skinny, w tanned muscles, she is a healthy balanced young woman who offers kind attention to people. Hairdressers are service providers, you must pay attention to the clients moods etc.

The script is very good.


Les Tuche**
comedy, story : poor folks wins big lottery and how they go to Monaco and country club and find themselves.

Here the film is based on the story of country bumpkins goes to fancy town with lots of cash and how to integrate into their new life.

It has its stereotypical moments, but overall there are some fresh parts for example as a nouveau rich, they drink champagne, country club, but they do not censure themselves of their old pleasures. Like eating french fries, photomaton machines (this i really like! I would like such a machine in my house!!) going to the supermarket, checking out the sales. Very feet on ground type of life style.
Kid turns out to be super genius (hard to believe... but get on w the story) a swindler scam for nouveau rich trying to get him to invest in some money; snobby country club people, and winning the neighbours over. Neighbours are also nouveau rich but from hard work not winning the lottery.

In the end, they decided to go back to their little home town and buy up the local factory instead. Where each worker only work 4hrs per day (i think the factory might go bankrupt soon? but this is a comedy... so) we end with large happy picnic table country fair style. And everybody is happy!