France may be known for its arthouse movies but the country is celebrating the return of fictional anti-heroes famed for limited intelligence, bad jokes and a taste for joblessness.
Les Tuche are a family of northern French losers who are the central characters in slapstick comedy films that have acquired cult status to the incredulity of critics brought up on works by such cerebral directors as François Truffaut, Éric Rohmer and Jean-Luc Godard.
The first Tuche movie was released in 2011 amid widespread expectations that it would be shunned by filmgoers.
Instead, Jeff Tuche, the father, who is played by Jean-Paul Rouve, his wife, Cathy, played by Isabelle Nanty, and their children, have become such stars that Les Tuche 4 was released today in 918 cinemas.
No film has had such a wide release in France since Star Wars VIII four years ago.
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Observers say that the family has come to embody French provincials who often feel scorned by the Parisian elite. The father, for instance, has what many view as a healthy ambition to remain unemployed, while his wife is admired for the boundless love she shows him despite his evident lack of nous. The characters are reminiscent in some respects of those in Shameless or The Royle Family on British television.
In previous Tuche films, the family wins the national lottery and leaves Bouzolles, their down-at-heel village, for Monaco and then California. But they return home to their roots in northern France, where the father enters politics in his fight to get Bouzolles put on the high-speed train line. He ends up as president after defeating an unpleasant and corrupt right-wing adversary.
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In Les Tuche 4, the plot has him resigning as head of state to return once more to Bouzolles, where he engages in combat against another emblem of evil — a US-owned, e-commerce platform that he accuses of ruining the spirit of Christmas. Amazon is not mentioned in the film, but the reference is nevertheless obvious, as is the anti-globalisation message to which provincial France is likely to adhere.
Olivier Baroux, the director, said: “There are two opposite visions of Christmas. For Jeff [Tuche], Christmas is going to the factory to see where the toys are made. Now you order on the telephone and everything arrives at the speed of light.”
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He added that the film was “very modern and transgressive in the way it treats unemployment. Jeff Tuche is out of work and happy to be so.”
Critics were divided by Les Tuche 4. Le Parisien was enthusiastic, saying: “The bottom of French society applauds [the film].”
Les Inrockuptibles, the cultural magazine, said the movie had “scraped the bottom of the barrel.”
