A Brilliant Conflict

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

an ordinary problem of XXI century as subject of a nice French comedy. good actors, seductive situations, the fight to impose to your son to start be independent, out of the comfort of his childhood home. the only problem - Tanguy is too quite to be the bad guy and, in a society of Peter Pan syndrome, the ironic portrait of a nice boy- young man does him almost a hero. Tanguy uses same clichés of French cinema who, after decades, are the key of success. Sabine Azema and Andre Dussollier are victims of the same image of angry parents looking impose to the son the need of assume of real life.Eric Berger uses same traits of charming young man who has his person, too precise vision about existence, mixture of passion for exotic domain and sentimental affairs. so, nothing surprising.

I watched this movie with so much hope! Dussollier, Azéma, beautiful Aurore Clément (from "Demain on déménage (2004)"), J. P. Rouve and many others, like always charming Delphine Serina (Avocats + associés) and a topic I am fond of paved the way for a killer Saturday night movie. I suppose that if you dislike the "philosophical grounds" of a movie, it's hard, almost impossible for it to work for you. I felt the parents were almost farcical from the start, when they "enjoyed themselves" when his adult only son wasn't with them at home, they basically did go out (something they could easily do with him still at home). In short, I found the kid too polite, peaceful and loving to be really hated. OK, he had some sort of "Peter Pan syndrome", and it's true he seemed to be all too comfortable at his parent's, but ... I just thought their (parent's) house was too posh and big, their reactions too violent (hiring thugs to kick your son out, wanting him dead when hearing there was a plane crash, teared apart his shirts etc., and erratic (Edith was suddenly loving and repentant until she found out her son wasn't actually dead, so was she when his son started suffering panic attacks, but not later). Tanguy is too perfect, if nerdy and unfaithful to his beautiful girlfriend. And probably too successful with (very beautiful on average) women he beds as effortlessly as we could say: "sneeze". Maybe that's French intellectual's prerogative, who knows :). His "rich and dumb" American clients are a big cliché that works. Everyone will have his/ her favourite scene. Mine are Paul's fits of anger: Tu te casses!! (=Get away!) and when Tanguy argues on the phone with her mum until he grabs the phone and yells: "Stop the crap" in worse and thus very convincing, terms. I think the film was illogical, and the 2nd part was actually awful. Watch without any expectation and you might be amused.

Enjoyable French comedy with funny scenario and inspiring cast. In a way, it reminds me Danny De Vito's "The war of the roses": how a simple idea (there, a case of divorce; here, dad and mom wanting to get rid of his 28 year old son) can be handled with such a black sense of humor, mixing fun and fierce satire at the same time. Unfortunately (and without giving much away), "Tanguy" resents a little from his length and refuses to go further on his almost surreal developed premise taking a kind and conformist turn in the end. Nevertheless, it's much more than entertainment: you'll be amused and will think about its subject after leaving the cinema.

Tanguy Guetz is the single child of boomer parents (represented in a way far different from the buttoned-down standard model of US movies, but probably a whole lot closer to the American boomers who'll actually see the movie). At 28, Tanguy is staying home with his parents, and intends to go on staying home for a year or two, because he's extremely comfortable there, never has to pick up anything or handle any bills, and lives with the two people he loves most. The feeling of comfort is definitely not mutual. But, as his parents mobilize for a get-out-of-here campaign, they meet the perfect stonewall. Tanguy is a major specialist of traditional Chinese thought, and he faces everything with an equanimity that a hundred-year-old sage would envy. The one-sided war escalates to the point where Tanguy sues his parents for bed and board, and wins. Eventually, he does fly off for a long stay in Beijing, and then, of course, the parents discover what it means to be the sandwich generation: Tanguy's grandmother breaks a hip.The blows are softened by the fact that the Guetz are quite well off. Else the movie would cut too close to the bone to be the uproarious farce that it is. The main actors, Eric Berger (Tanguy) and Sabine Azéma (his mother) play their characters with contagious fun.