MR BEAN’S HOLIDAY
UK, 2007, 90 minutes, Colour.
Rowan Atkinson, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe, Jean Rochefort, Karel Roden.
Directed by Steve Bendelack.
For the loathers, it is important to note that Mr Bean is far more benign in this film than in the past. He is not nearly so mean or downright nasty. He does have a few of these moments, as when he slides all his uneaten oysters into a lady’s bag at a fashionable Paris restaurant. But by and large, he is far more kind than we might ever have expected him to be.
For those who love him, this incipient niceness may be a put off. His self-satisfied oneupmanship or his desperate trying to save himself in awkward situations may have been part of his past appeal.
Mr Bean wins a raffle at the local church which sends him off to Cannes for a holiday with a videocamera and an envelope of euros. The video camera features in a lot of the gags and amusing use is made of the footage during the Cannes film festival.
Basically, Mr Bean has troubles on his way to Cannes, getting on and off trains and entangling himself with the stranded son of a Russian director whom he had persuaded to film him getting on the train and who subsequently found the doors shut on him. After various mishaps, after busking with the boy to an operatic aria to great acclaim, he finds himself on the film set of a commercial using the Nazi invasion of France. Needless to say he causes mayhem for the pompous director. He gets a lift from the actress, is reunited with the boy and then gate crashes a premiere where the star has a cameo in the pompous director’s film.
There are a lot of sight gags which fans will enjoy. Mr Bean, at this stage of his life, seems a cross between Jacques Tati and Jerry Lewis.
Film buffs will enjoy the scenes with the director, Willem Dafoe, especially the screening of his pretentious, existentialist arthouse film which he wrote, produced, directed, starred – and basked in self-satisfaction during its screening while everyone else slept or fidgeted. When it is interrupted with Mr Bean’s visuals along with the director’s voiceover, it is a hit!!
Director, Steve Bendelack, has a twenty year history of directing much satiric television including Spitting Image, The League of Gentlemen, French and Saunders, The Royle Family and Little Britain.
Rowan Atkinson used to be more acerbic as Mr Bean and, especially, as Blackadder. Since the Johnny English shenanigans, he has become more benign, aiming at a broader audience.