When Nicolas (Maxime Godart), a mischievous French schoolboy, overhears Mama (Valérie Lemercier) and Papa (Kad Merad) talking about a new arrival, he reasons it can only mean one thing - a baby! Convinced his parents plan on abandoning him in the forest to make room for his new sibling, Nicolas enlists his school friends for a series of increasingly hare-brained schemes to ensure he won’t lose his family.
Outside Europe Petit Nicolas ranks among the lesser known comic characters created by René Goscinny, the man behind Asterix the Gaul and Lucky Luke. Indeed, overseas the film was marketed as some kind of Gallic variation on Diary of a Wimpy Kid (2010). On home soil Petit Nicolas proved an enormous success, France’s biggest box office hit of 2009 in fact and among the most profitable French films of all time. Although likely too genteel to repeat that success on these shores, it remains a hugely endearing family film. For director Laurent Tirard this marks another unexpected swerve in an increasingly eclectic C.V., coming after the lavish period piece Molière (2007) and widely celebrated rom-com The Story of My Life (2004).
Set in the early Sixties, the film employs the warmth of nostalgia as part of its appeal, recreating a milieu now almost as unfamiliar yet beguiling to French filmgoers as the rest of us. Happily, Tirard sidesteps any potential lapse into cloying sentimentality with some incisive observations about childhood angst and most importantly, big hearty laughs. The episodic screenplay, which features input from famed comedian and filmmaker Alain Chabat, seemingly set out to recreate all of the most beloved scenes from Goscinny’s books. There is only the barest wisp of a plot, centred around Nicolas’ anxiety over what he presumes is the imminent arrival of a baby brother and the amusing schemes he and his friends resort to in order to raise money to hire a gangster to abduct the as-yet-unborn infant!
The film places stock characters familiar from countless children’s stories - the cake-scoffing fat kid (Vincent Claude), the rich kid (Charles Vaillant), the lovably dopey kid (Victor Carles), the bossypants love interest (Elisa Heusch) - in stock situations. In its weaker moments it does come to resemble a sitcom pilot yet a succession of inspired visual gags and the often charming observational humour continue to captivate the viewer. Such scenes as the school medical exam, the family’s disastrous dinner with Papa’s boss and the bravura car chase finale, linger in the memory as does an unexpected cameo from Gérard Jugnot as his character from beloved school drama The Chorus (2004). Also look out for the lovely Louise Bourgoin, of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010), as a florist who has a truly calamitous encounter with the schoolboys.
What ultimately makes Petit Nicolas so watchable are the engaging characters inhabited by its talented cast. Seasoned actors Valérie Lemercier and Kad Merad are supremely winning as Nicolas’ squabbling but loving parents while Sandrine Kiberlain acquits herself very well as his ever-exasperated yet kindly schoolteacher, the show is fittingly stolen by the fresh-faced young actors whose confidence and charisma light up the screen. Young Maxime Godart exudes star quality in the title role and undoubtedly does Goscinny proud. Incidentally, fans of Goscinny’s work will relish Nicolas’ truly madcap scheme inspired by the author’s most internationally feted creation.
