© 2011 Lone Wolf Sullivan
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Crustacés et Coquillages (2005)
A father, mother, daughter and son head to the south of France for a summer vacation on the Riviera. Marc (Gilbert Melki) takes his wife Béatrix (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and their two children to the beach home of his youth. The Mediterranean wind blows, the sea churns, and the heat of summer stokes their desires for a number of sexy liasons. Their 19 year-old daughter Laura (Sabrina Seyvecou) has a rendezvous with her biker boyfriend Michaël (Yannick Baudin), and their 17 year-old son Charly (Romain Torres) roams the beach with his best friend Martin (Edouard Collin), who is in love with him. Béatrix is sensitive to the undisclosed, erotically charged atmosphere that exists between the boys and imagines that her straight son is gay. She prides herself on being ultra-tolerant, so her reaction is not one of distress, but relief. Marc is somewhat bothered by this and by the open sexuality in the family, and especially concerned about being disinherited by his aunt. Béatrix re-encounters her old boyfriend, Marc's ex-flame pops up, and both former lovers express interest in rekindling affairs. Soon, the entire vacation becomes a hilarious erotic complication that collapses into chaos.
Arriving at the coastal villa Marc has inherited from his aunt, the family settles in for a long, lazy summer. Laura leaves for Portugal with Michaël, and shaggy rebellious Charly welcomes childhood friend Martin for an extended stay. Charly is not gay but Martin is fresh out of the closet, intent to cruise the beachside cliffs at night. While the two awkwardly renegotiate their friendship, the parents read every signal incorrectly. ''It's sunny, the house is divine, Charly is gay--what's the problem?" Béatrix says to her husband. She can afford to say that, since her lover Mathieu (Jacques Bonnaffe) has decided to vacation nearby and is constantly dialing her up on her cellphone for a quick romp in the bushes he pops out of in the nude. Marc gets turned on when he spies Martin pleasuring himself in the shower. Much of the drama comes from whether there will be enough hot water for everyone to take a shower and suddenly those long hot showers everyone takes in the film make a lot more sense. Hunky plumber Didier (Jean-Marc Barr) is called in, a grinning hunk of rough trade, and starts dispensing family secrets. He takes a liking to Charly, yet also is the ex-lover of Marc, having had a gay affair before Marc married Beatrix. Marc and Béatrix are indeed an odd couple who somehow make it work.
This light-hearted mix of comedy and drama smacks of a standard soap opera, but with motion picture length. It's a bawdy and silly farce. ''Crustacés et Coquillages" piles the farcical misunderstandings higher and higher, and just when you think it couldn't get any more absurd, there's a musical number sung by Marc and Béatrix to the two boys on a rainy day. It's called ''Crustacés et Coquillages" ("Crustaceans and Shell Fish"), which is also the film's French title. The characters are flat, rather predictable and undergo little development in the movie’s first hour. During the last thirty minutes, things speed up in order to tie up loose ends and finish the whole thing off with a happy ending. This film is cute, but totally forgettable, sexually frank without being dangerous, and that toothlessness is both a source of pleasure and a serious limitation. It's a movie where no one gets hurt, no matter how unseemly the revelation. ''Let's just say I find the situation a little tacky," Béatrix says about one particular turn of the plot. She's right, but you could say that about all summer houses. The film received mixed reviews from critics. Philippe Miller composed the original music. Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau both wrote the screenplay and directed. In French with English subtitles. The two English titles are "Côte d'Azur" and "Cockles and Muscles".
