This vehicle chiefly destined to highlight the humorist Franck Dubosc whose irresistible one-man shows partly revolved around his experiences as a camper flocked millions of French viewers in the French theaters (more than about 5 millions). Dubosc was the main attraction and from a popular standpoint, the experience galvanized him to work with the director Fabien Onteniente for his stale "Disco" (2008).
However, from an artistic perspective, "Camping" will never revolutionize French comedy. Actually, it's a comedy in which one never really laughs even if several cues or sequences make smile. I dig the moments when Dubosc introduces his tent and the rules of life to Gérard Lanvin and his wife. The latter comes from an upper-class milieu and because his car broke down, has no other choice than to stay for a few days in a camp with French common people. As Pulp sang in their terrific song: "you'll never do what common people do", that's exactly the same with him. Anyway, the tenet of a man who has to cope with a new world is so hackneyed that Onteniente doesn't try to renew it. His film accumulates the different predictable links of the chain of the story following an ultra-mapped scheme. Ditto for the other campers whose "problems" make me yawn. Too bad for Mathilde Seigner and Claude Brasseur who deserve better than this. At best, Onteniente tries to follow other narrative directions but quickly gives them up.
Lanvin offers a wooden acting and Dubosc gives us his little act but in a more subdued way than in his shows. His aficionados may want to watch this corny piece of work and it's perhaps the category of viewers the film is mostly destined to.
However, from an artistic perspective, "Camping" will never revolutionize French comedy. Actually, it's a comedy in which one never really laughs even if several cues or sequences make smile. I dig the moments when Dubosc introduces his tent and the rules of life to Gérard Lanvin and his wife. The latter comes from an upper-class milieu and because his car broke down, has no other choice than to stay for a few days in a camp with French common people. As Pulp sang in their terrific song: "you'll never do what common people do", that's exactly the same with him. Anyway, the tenet of a man who has to cope with a new world is so hackneyed that Onteniente doesn't try to renew it. His film accumulates the different predictable links of the chain of the story following an ultra-mapped scheme. Ditto for the other campers whose "problems" make me yawn. Too bad for Mathilde Seigner and Claude Brasseur who deserve better than this. At best, Onteniente tries to follow other narrative directions but quickly gives them up.
Lanvin offers a wooden acting and Dubosc gives us his little act but in a more subdued way than in his shows. His aficionados may want to watch this corny piece of work and it's perhaps the category of viewers the film is mostly destined to.