Member review

My dad runs the Bridge IPS Film club and I have recently watched Petit Nicolas for my schools French teacher. My Dad liked my review so asked me to put it here to tell children how good this movie was.

Petit Nicolas

Petit Nicolas is a 2009 French Movie directed by Laurent Tirad and is adapted from the books written by Rene Goscinny and illustrated by Jean Jacques Sempe. The Nicolas books were a set of popular books in France and have been translated into many languages. Each of the books contained many different adventures or episodes in Nicolas life set into short chapters so it was interesting to see how they would make it into a movie.

This movie would be classed as a family comedy and is mainly aimed at children. The children in the story are played by some very good actors and the film made me laugh so I guess that means it succeeded as a comedy.

The movie introduces Nicolas, all his friends , his parents and some of the adults in the story before the main titles and this was quite good because then we know who they are before the story begins. My dad really liked it when the titles started because it showed lots of Sempe’s illustrations from the books. He told me he had read the books when he was young. He said to me he had discovered one of the books on a family holiday and his mum read it to him.When they came back home they searched for English versions and read them - though he told me some of the characters names are different in the movie. The movie reminds me a bit of the Diary of a Wimpy kid movies but it is obvious by the way the people dress that the movie was set in the 20th century and maybe even 40- 50 years ago.

When the story begins Nicolas’ friend Joachim has a baby brother but then later on vanishes from school. Nicolas and his friends discuss what happens when a baby arrives in the family. Joachim basically tells them that they don’t matter any more and they compare it to the story of Tom Thumb they have learnt in school , where he gets left in the woods.

One evening Nicolas overhears his parents talking about a new arrival, he knows it can only mean one thing – a baby! Convinced they are making plans to leave him in the forest to make room for his baby brother or sister, he gets the help of his classmates to make sure he will survive.

My favourite part of the movies was when Nicolas , Alceste, Clotaire and his friends tried to clean up Nicolas’ house and made a bigger mess, it was really funny. Some people might nor like this type of movie because it has subtitles but it did not affect me as I am used to this- it also helped to spell some of the names of the characters . I would recommend this movie highly.