La ch’tite famille [Family is Family] (2018)

(On TV, November 2022) French comedian writer-director-actor Danny Boon is at it again with La ch’tite famille, “it” being a comedy about rural folks teaching a few lessons to urban protagonists. The setup here is that our protagonist (Boon) has escaped his Northern France origins to become a successful designer in Paris—and his estranged family eventually comes calling, triggering a succession of events that leaves him amnesiac and speaking the thick ch’ti patois of his native area. There’s more (such as a plot by his father-in-law to take over his business), but you get the gist of it. While the specifics of the Paris-contre-ch’tis comedy are very, very French, more or less the same story could be re-located to rural Alabama and New York City without missing much—it’s a basic slobs-versus-snobs story that doesn’t hide its sympathies for the populist life. (The recurring gag about unusable hypermodern chairs is emblematic.) One sequence in which a refined character tries to understand spoken ch’ti is a lifeline to non-French audiences, but also shows some empathy for the simple folks. La ch’tite famille obviously builds on the monster success of Boon’s previous Bienvenue chez les ch’tis, but is not a sequel in most senses of the word. Still, it is a decent broad-spectrum comedy made for box-office success. It combines Boon’s solid comic instincts with decent production values and fine supporting actors. It may not be great cinema, but it manages to entertain for a while.