The Bélier Family (2014)

Loved the storyline, sweet but not cheesy, not your standard teen drama, but offering a genuinely valuable insight into the fears and hopes that go through the minds of young people. It has the added interest of providing the rarely seen perspective of a deaf family. The French is very accessible, so I would recommend it for French learners at either A2 european level (onwards) or working towards their French GCSE (use French subtitles!). It creates valuable cultural links in the classroom to both Michel Sardou´s classic songs, and to new teen celebrity Louane Emera, a finalist to the French version of The Voice. Definitely worth a watch :)

This is a really conventional film. It wasn't painful, It's not like I didn't enjoy it. But I really can't fathom the rave reviewsAs I was watching, it always felt as if it would take an interesting turn, or something. There was the mother's "we thought you were a lesbian!" comment. I thought perhaps this might be genuine and perhaps the daughter was actually jealous of her best friend's regular sexual encounters. But I quickly realised it was intended to be a joke, based on the laughing of the people who thought it was funny for some reason.It felt as if the characters had potentially important interactions and then immediately forgot about them. For example, at the start there is a scene in which a GP instructs the couple not to have sex for 3 weeks at least (, presumably due to some kind of disease). Not long after that they have sex anyway. But the consequences or significance of this is never touched upon. What was the purpose of the GP scene, seeing as nothing he said affected anything in the movie? These kinds of seemingly meaningless, but perhaps mildly funny scenes are littered throughout the movie. It feels like they were spreading the seeds for interesting plot items later on but all this potential was abandoned to focus on the main plot. which is straight out of Hollywood, it'd be hard to find a more typical coming-of-age story.All this would have been perfectly passable if the characters had been more charming and interesting. But instead most seem very shallow, quite cliché. Both the love interest and younger brother rarely go beyond the teenage male stereotype as perpetuated by middle agers. Here is a list of the younger brother's interesting traits: -he loves his sister -he likes breasts -he wants to have sex with his sister's friend Here is a list of the love interest's interesting traits: -he is kinda sad or worried for some reason and quits singing even though he's good at it (this is never followed up?) -that wasn't a personality trait and the love interest is a really boring character. It doesn't help that the actor doesn't seem capable of more than one facial expression.The singing teacher is somewhat interesting. But it seems like he changes throughout the movie. At first, he's dismissing the central character's friend from the choir audition before she even sang based on the way she looked if I recall correctly. So I thought "wow, this person really is a dick". But then the central character barely seems to even care and by the end of the movie the teacher is nothing but warm and cordial. There are posters of someone all over his room but this is also never discussed. Similarly there are interesting posters all over the central character's room. What looks like a Chinese communist poster in her study area, hindu posters on the wall. But they are also never discussed and I'm still wondering how they got there. The acting is all pretty good except for the love interest, especially how little there seemed to be to work with. Same with cinematography and music.So yeah. I left feeling as if I had watched nothing. Like I can remember watching all these events happen, but they had no meaning or significance within the plot. The only plot that was followed through was so cliché I may as well have already seen it. What did I think of the movie? I don't feel like I even watched a movie...

I consider myself a person who likes to watch movies to laugh. I usually avoid, drama or very heartbreaking movies, but this movie was something else.It does have its funny moments however, throughout the movie you feel your emotions exploding and without being able to control them you find yourself with tears on your cheeks. I do not want to be misunderstood these are not tears of sadness they are simply tears of exploding emotions.The plot is not something extraordinaire, its simple and some may say that we have seen it before, yet the flow of the plot and the actors is so natural and then we have the music which comes to add withe the key character's beautiful voice that extra special peak of emotion. A movie that you should not miss out!

I loved the film, I went to the films just to disconnect and that film Was like a renewal for me to finish my awful workweek. Is the kind of film that make you laugh a lot and touch you as well. I totally recommend it, in French language of course. The little girl will conquest you, because of her naturally behavior and the rest of the family will make you smile from the beginning. The filmmaker hold the public on the whole film with an adorable mixture of empathy, love, fun and sadness. The belier Family is one of the greatest French films in the last ten years, which is capable to conquest the world as Amelie or untouchable did before.