Wonderful character development!

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I really love this film! There is a sweetness about it that really makes you smile. I love films where a child and adult are forced to have conversation and how both parties learn from one other. It's not easy to pull off because it depends so much on the balance of the two, the child must be believable, and Claire Bouanich as Elsa is. She kinda reminds me of a young Linsay Lohan (in the Parent Trap). Michel Serrault is, of course wonderful. He played a similar role in Une hirondelle a fait le printemps (The Girl From Paris), a crotchety old man, who wants to be left alone but somehow is won over by a young person, full of energy and life, and full of questions too. I had a very personal connection with this film that I can't explain only that there were scenes in it that made me shiver only because It coincided so much with certain things in my life. If you have children, watch this film. If you don't, you may want them afterwards.

I can't remember the last time I watched a movie to the end of the credits and immediately went back to the titles and watched it all over again. I was in need of some cheering up. Parents can watch "The Butterfly" with their children and everyone in the room will enjoy it.It is a pleasure to see a child actor who is as natural and believable as Claire Bouanich. I'm guessing she didn't know she was working with a legend -- but maybe she did. Anyway, she more than holds her own with Michel Serrault.Some of the "life lessons" taught in "The Butterfly" are a little pat. Some of the coincidences are a bit contrived. But that's OK. The beautiful scenery, witty banter between the two leads and the lessons they learn from each other make up for any deficiencies. Sometimes what we need or want most in our lives really is right under our noses. This movie is a gentle reminder of that basic truth. Very sweet and endearing.

Julien (Michel Serrault) is a bitter old man in the midst of an emotional desert. His collection of butterflies constitutes his sole passion. One day, he makes his new little neighbor's acquaintance, Elsa (Claire Bouanich), visibly neglected by her mother but looks unfavorably on her intrusion in his life. One day, he's going to the Alps to try to find a rare species of butterfly, the Isabelle and for his greatest pleasure, Elsa invited herself to the trip...If you ever want to spend an evening in front of a DVD and if you search for originality, then this Philippe Muyl's flick hasn't your name on it. How many times have we seen the eternal recipe of a friendship story between a grumpy old man and a little girl as fresh as a daisy? Making Julien and Elsa go into the Alps to try to discover the Isabelle is a pretext to bring them together and make them know each other. At first, it's hostility. At the end, complicity prevails. Between the two poles, a scheduled psychological evolution. In short, on the surface "the Butterfly" (2002) smells the reheated. However, although Muyl has limited talents as a film-maker (the success of "Cooking and Dependences" 1993 is to be attributed to the tandem Jean-Pierre Bacri/Agnès Jaoui), there's something warm in his work. The presence of the little Claire Bouanich is partly responsible of it. She's so gorgeous of freshness and spontaneity that it would take a heart of stone to resist her. Definitely no Shirley Temple. She sees in Julien, the grandfather she would have liked to have and especially an experienced person to take care of her. Getting in contact with him, she learns life with its joys and sorrows and her hill-walking is rich in learning lessons so that it's nearly an initiatory travel for her. Beside her, Michel Serrault is excellent as usual.Tenderness for his two main characters, preposterous explications but adapted to a child's faculties of understanding to bring touches of humor (did you know that shooting stars are locks of hair God loses?). Philippe Muyl mixes these two things and by letting oneself slip into this touching story, one just has to be charmed along the way and the work is done. And it works rather well. There's a feel-good factor that dominates our minds throughout the projection and sometimes it's comforting to feel this. Moreover, the wild beauty of the Alpin countryside is highlighted to add a decent amount of poetry.But probably to avoid a break of tone, the director erased as much as possible dramatic sides of the story, particularly the hateful misunderstanding according which Julien is suspected to have kidnapped Elsa when she left of her own free will. During the time the two protagonists are in the mountains, this point is taken to the back seat and after Elsa fell into the hole and help rescue her, Julien is taken to the police station but we can watch him leaving it rather freely without any trouble. Philippe Muyl glossed over this point. Fortunately, that doesn't muck up the bliss of the projection but beware Mr Muyl! You came close to disaster! At the end of the road, the most cynical ones will only probably see a simpering flick without any real depth and tailor made to furnish an evening in front of the telly. As for the others: if you are sick of watching violent or bloody movies à la "Kill Bill" (2003/2004), why not having a break with this certainly stereotyped product but so cute which surfs on the wave of unexpected popular movies like "une hirondelle a fait le printemps" (2001) through the simple philosophy it brings out: earth connection, a return to the basic pleasures of life.

The premise of an old man/woman lumbered with a young child of invariably the opposite sex is a time-honored plot in both literature and movies. Damon Runyon's 'Little Miss Marker', for instance made it from short story to screen at least twice, three times if you count the Tony Curtis '40 Pounds Of Trouble' entry. So ideally we need to apply a little spin to the genre and that's what we have here, a Gallic souffle pitting Michel Serrault's solitary specialist against the neglected child from the one-parent family. Helmer Muyl artfully turns this into a quest movie; all his life Serrault has been searching for the rare 'Isabella' butterfly which only breeds for 30 seconds every other Fall. As luck would have it - or not, as the case may be - just as he sets out for an extended trip to nail the sucker once and for all he finds stowaway Elsa (with her often-absentee mother she has moved into Serrault's apartment building and already caused havoc by opening the hot-house door against his specific instructions, thereby releasing several species into the wild). There's nowhere really new to go with a story like this so that the best we can hope for is to be charmed along the way - and, in this case, get some spectacular scenery thrown in - and that we get, in spades. At his age Serrault should know better than to go up against Cute on wheels but incredibly he holds his own and the result is Feelgood squared. If there is a minor beef it is that not enough was made of Elsa's wandering away, falling down a well obliging Serrault to involve the police and face charges of kidnap if not worse. With barely any explanation he is freed and befriends Elsa's mother before settling down to teach Elsa how life goes in cycles via the hatching of the specimens they caught. Cynics may balk at the Bluebird of Happiness reference when Serrault learns that a specimen sent to him at the outset is, in fact, the elusive Isabella, i.e. the thing he was looking for was right there under his nose all the time if only he'd known it. These cavils apart the film is a joy as well as a welcome antidote to the Texas Chainsaws of this world. Highly recommended.