Little Nicholas (2009)

A very cute film with an interesting plot and beautiful scenes of urban France.It is better than Diary of a Wimpy Kid,much better. It has a more interesting story and characters that give the film a funny twist. I like the fact that it shows a importance of education in French society.Many American films directed in the U.S. don't emphasize any educational values including Diary of the Wimpy Kid.I give it stars.I do recommend it to everyone.

Having only recently emerged from childhood, but not recently enough to have forgotten it, I can say with credence that Laurent Tirard's slightly absurdist, deliriously comic adaptation of Rene Goscinny's "Le Petit Nicolas" books knocks Richard Linklater's unnecessarily dreary and pointless Oscar-excuse out of the park and into the poubelle where it belongs. Unlike Boyhood, Le Petit Nicolas finds - a decidedly comical - joy in childhood, reveling in naivety and innocence with appropriately childlike delight.Le Petit Nicolas follows a young boy, Nicolas, as he interacts with his friends and family. When he discovers that his parents are going to have a child, and to his horror, that such a development could mean his expulsion from his home, he and his friends set out on a quest to hire a gangster to kidnap the baby and leave it in a jungle. The film bounds from hilarious misadventures to surprisingly dark coincidence with gorgeous fluidity. The story is told well enough to charge every frame with purpose, and even the comedy has a certain universality about it that will render the film irresistible to any age. It's no emotional tour de force, or even as funny as I would like to say it is, but I consider it one of the most true depictions of childhood I have ever seen on film. In other words, "oui, c'est bon."

It has been suggested that this film is a Gallic style Diary of a Wimpy Kid type of film. In both style and approach it is very much closer to the wonderful 1980 Australian Classic 'Fatty Finn', and is much the better film as a result, especially for the adults in the audience. Maxime Godart apparently effortlessly becomes the character of Nicolas, who has a very clear take on events around him, as most boys his age do. This film brings back to me all the joys and fears of my own eight year old life, and it is a joy to see that the rest of the cast get into the spirit of Nicolas' world with relish. Watch this film, and enjoy being a child again! Better still, watch it with your own children and enjoy being the same age as them!

This movie is amazing. It is not often that I go to see a foreign movie, but people had told me how good this one was so I just went. And I do not regret it. The actors all seem to fit perfectly for their part. I found it hard to imagine how they were any different in real life. One gets kind of nostalgic, seeing those children in their school uniforms. The story is just wonderful, and it is really, really humorous, the entire audience laughed throughout the movie. It is not that kind of funny in the way normal Adam Sandler and those Hollywood movies are. It has something more to it, it is not, well, hollow (cannot really describe it). The way the director has got this set up, to see the world the way a kid sees it, to look into what's going through their mind, this is all just wonderful. I walked out of there with a little smile on, I was all fuzzy after having laughed so much.I would really like it if my town would start showing more foreign movies like this one.