La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille

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Praline Le MoultScreen Time: 15%Role: Emmanuelle Le Quesnoy Age: 7 years old |
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Jean-Brice Van KeerScreen Time: 15%Role: Mathieu Le Quesnoy Age: 11 years old |
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Emmanuel GrendrierScreen Time: 25%Role: Pierre Le Quesnoy Age: 15 years old |
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Valérie LalondeScreen Time: 35%Role: Bernadette Le Quesnoy Age: 10 years old |
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Benoît MagimelScreen Time: 50%Role: Maurice 'Momo' Groseille Age: 12 years old |
La Vie est un long fleuve tranquille
1987
Life Is a Long Quiet River
Photos
Rating: 7 (4 votes)
Directed: Étienne Chatiliez
Country: France
Language: French
Genre: Comedy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096386
Directed: Étienne Chatiliez
Country: France
Language: French
Genre: Comedy
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096386
Summary
Two babies are switched at birth. When the mistake is discovered 12 years later, it leads to complications in the lives of both families. One family is affluent, with dutiful and (apparently) contented children. The other family is poor, with rambunctious (even delinquent) children, often hungry, but with lots of laughter in the house.
Movie Reviews
"Life is a Long Quiet River" is sort of a straight version of that Bette Midler-Lily Tomlin comedy "Big Business," pre-pubescent-style.This French satire is a compendium of sequences loosely telling the story of how a vengeful nurse's spiteful act has repercussions for two families — one upper middle-class and one poor — some 12 years later.
The nurse switches newborns because she's angry with the doctor who delivered them — they're having an affair and he treats her quite badly. Then, 12 years later, when his wife dies and he refuses to marry her, she informs the families of her earlier action.
So the young boy in the poor family, who has become a smoking, drinking petty thief, is taken in by the well-to-do family, a strict, straight-laced Catholic brood. The result is rather predictable chaos.
Some of this is moderately amusing, some rather coarse, with a great many characters, most of whom are skimmed too superficially. The result is a movie with something to say about genetics vs. environment, but which doesn't say it particularly well.