Jean-Paul Salomé

(On Cable TV, November 2022) Being French-Canadian carries with it near-honorary cultural kinship with both France and the United States—the first for its still-considerable cultural influence on French-Canadian content, the second for, well, dictating popular entertainment around planet Earth. So, it’s with some very strange pleasure that Restons groupés plays like a mashup of French attitudes crashing into American soil. The fun of the film gets going when a guided tour of French tourists ends up stranded in the American south-west thanks to the abrupt bankruptcy of the company. Falsely reassured that money will eventually start flowing again, the tour guide stays quiet and tries to manage the tour’s tight budget no matter the absence of reimbursements. That lie doesn’t last all that long, but it launches the clash of cultures that lies at the heart of the film. As the tourists play Ugly Frenchmen in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Arizona, Utah and points in between, it becomes a group dynamics study, an excuse for bewilderment at American culture, and an opportunity for broad comedy. Interestingly enough, the film hasn’t aged much in nearly twenty-five years. Aside from an antiquated computer (easily becoming a gag about the rural community in which it’s located) and an easily overlooked absence of cell phones (which would have destroyed the initial premise of the film), much of the material still works well. (Although the satirical bit about reactionary forces in the US feels a bit soft these days.) While not a great comedy, writer-director Jean-Paul Salomé’s Restons groupés remains quite watchable, often likable, and even insightful at times. France meets America has seldom been funnier. (But I’m not sure if the film is available in the US.)