c'est la vie!
DIRECTOR: Éric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (the intouchables, samba)
STARRING: jean - pierre bacri, eye haidara, vincent macaigne, gilles lellouche, and jean - paul rouve
REVIEWER: lyall carter
★★★★
Max is a disgruntled wedding caterer just trying to get through night, as a hectic wedding party held in an 17th century French palace goes from bad to worse.
​You have to hand it to the French - they serve up comedies which are as cinematically delectably as anything a Michelin starred restaurant on the streets of Paris can plate up. In the last decade they have delivered great comedic films from Micmacs to Welcome to the Sticks. C'est La Vie is no exception with a superb ensemble cast and all the knee slapping and off beat humour you would expect from a French comedy.
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Max has been a wedding caterer for many years and tonight is no exception as we follow him and his team as they prepare to make a wedding held at a 17th century French palace come together. Staff blunders, food poisoning, a wedding photographer no one in France except will hire except Max, and the groom strapped to a balloon fashioned as the moon makes C'est La Vie a superbly entertaining, if not at times bizarre, tale. But the film is not just played for laughs as we learn the lives and loves of the major characters in Max's band of wedding caterers.
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The cast are an utter delight led wonderfully by Jean - Pierre Bacri who plays Max, the leader of this bumbling band. In the midst of trying to corral the chaos around him, Max must chose between his wife or his mistress and whether he will retire from the business altogether. Bacri beautiful holds the tension between control and maddening rage as the evening starts to unravel before Max's eyes. Eye Haidara and Gilles Lellouche are particularly delightful as bickering colleagues and the way in which they make up is comedic gold.
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I must admit I was sitting on the fence about C'est La Vie before going to the cinema. The trailer had left me a little underwhelmed but I was intrigued when I saw that it was directed by Toledano and Nakache who were at the helm of the marvellous The Intouchables. I couldn't have been more delighted. C'est La Vie had me laughing throughout along with the rest of the cinema. This is a wedding reception you don't want to miss.
C'est La Vie will have you roaring with laughter and chuckling to yourself for days afterwards. A real treat.
★★★★
C'est La Vie! is available on DVD and digital from all good disc and digital retailers.
