Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis (Welcome to the Sticks) (***½)

Directed by: Dany Boon
Starring: Kad Merad, Dany Boon, Zoé Félix, Lorenzo Ausilia-Foret, Anne Marivin
Seen: June 30th 2009

***½ Out of ****

Welcome to the Sticks is one of the most charming and truly funny comedies I’ve seen in a very long time. While I usually enjoy comedies, they only make me laugh out loud occasionally. This is not the case with this brilliant French comedy which had me and the rest of the audience in stitches from start to finish.

Philippe Abrams (Merad) works for the French post office, and is applying for a transfer to the Mediterranean seaside, or the French Riviera, to make his slightly depressive (but very pretty) wife, Julie (Félix) happier, and he tries everything he can. He doesn’t get it, losing the position to a handicapped person, and in a desperate bid to get the next-best transfer, also to a beautiful coastal town, he pretends to be handicapped, and is found out, resulting in management deciding to “banish” him to the far-off and unknown town of Bergues, in the far-North of France, which is painted as an extremely rough and uncouth place. How bad can 2 years be?

En route he is stopped by traffic police, who tell him it’s dangerous to drive only 30 miles per hour on the highway, but let him off with a warning when they hear he’s headed to Bergues. He sees a sign next to the road reading: “Welcome to the North”, which is pretty much the last thing he really sees, because in that instant it starts raining, really hard. Late that night in Bergues, he is stopped by a pedestrian, who he doesn’t see and hits with his car. This turns out to be Antoine Bailleul (Boon), his welcoming committee. He talks funny and Philippe has a hard time understanding his strange Ch’tis French dialect. This all is excellently funny, but not for Philippe, who becomes more and more depressive.

But as the next day starts out bright and beautiful, Philippe slowly begins to see things aren’t so bad, and he actually finds connection with the town’s people. Antoine is the post office’s delivery guy, who is in love with the counter girl, Annabelle (Marivin), and Philippe slowly warms to them. When Philippe goes home after his first two weeks, he tries telling his wife that things aren’t so bad, but she does not want to hear his justifications, forcing him to admit how bad it all is. Philippe sees that his wife is shaking off the depression to stand strong for him, and he starts running with it, thinking he is doing his relationship with his wife a favour.

As the ruse starts building, and when Julie decides to visit, the hilarity also does, and every single actor is funny without being corny. The situational humour is not forced for even a minute, and doesn’t even resort to slap-stick. Everyone will find something funny in this film, and the only problem I had was, in some small instances, to keep up with the subtitles while trying to keep my eyes on the visuals as well, I wish I understood French.

Welcome to the Sticks is an absolute welcome relief in a world of otherwise bland comedy. It is exactly the kind of art-house circuit film I’ve been asking for for quite a while, a good European film, and not a mainstream wannabe film that will only steal revenue from a mainstream cinema, and is thus shown as “art” at an art-house cinema. Feel free to go see Welcome to the Sticks, it’s a genuine spirit-lifting experience.