The Grocer's son : Le Fils D'épicer

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This month's short film : One weekend a month (12 min., director, Eric Escobar).
Nicolas Cazalé, Clotilde Hesme, Jeanne Goupil, Daniel Duval, Lilane Rovère.
It is summer, and thirty-year-old Antoine is forced to leave the city to return to his family in Provence. His father is sick, so he must assume the lifestyle he thought he had shed: driving the family grocery cart from hamlet to hamlet, delivering supplies to the few remaining inhabitants. Accompanied by Claire, a friend from Paris whom he has a secret crush on, Antoine gradually warms up to his experience in the country and his encounters with the villagers, who initially seem stubborn and gruff, but ultimately prove to be funny and endearing. Ultimately, this surprise French box-office hit is about the coming-of-age of a man re-discovering life and love in the countryside. Container.
DVD ; region 1, video aspect 16:9.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Summary / Annotation

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The Grocer’s Son (Le fils d’épicier) submitted by patrice on September 25, 2009, 3:39pm Many reviews of The Grocer’s Son describe a coming-of-age film: a thirty-something man discovers himself when he goes back to his roots in the country, helping his mother run the family business while his father is sick (and, of course, there’s a love interest). Those reviews do the movie a great disservice by glossing over some of the foundational themes, which happen to be fairly unpleasant.

The movie works as a character study of a thirty-something man who is coming to terms with his father’s abusive nature, especially regarding his marriage and gender equity. He struggles to distance himself from his father in hopes to become the opposite. The main character faces his own prejudices, eventually coming to terms with them and the similarities to his father. I thought it was an honest and realistic portrayal of a young man’s self-reflective reconciliation with his family and self.