Mr. Bean's Holiday

"French Bean" redirects here. You may be looking for Green bean.

Mr. Bean's Holiday
Directed by	Steve Bendelack
Produced by	Peter Bennet-Jones Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Rowan Atkinson
Screenplay by	Hamish McColl Robin Driscoll
Story by	Simon McBurney
Starring	Rowan Atkinson Emma de Caunes Max Baldry Willem Dafoe Jean Rochefort Karel Roden
Music by	Howard Goodall
Cinematography	Baz Irvine
Editing by	Tony Cranstoun
Studio	Working Title Films StudioCanal Tiger Aspect Productions
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	24 March 2007 (UK) 24 August 2007 (US)
Running time	85 min.
Country	United Kingdom France
Language	English French
Budget	$25 million
Box office	$229,736,344 (worldwide)[1]

Mr. Bean's Holiday is a 2007 British comedy film by Rowan Atkinson, which was released in the United Kingdom and Australia on 24 March 2007 and on 24 August 2007 in the United States and Canada. It is the second film based on the television series Mr. Bean, a sequel to 1997's Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie.

Release

News of the second film first broke in early 2005, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney, although in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and long-time collaborator Richard Curtis.^[2] The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl.^[3]

Unlike the 1997 Mel Smith film, Mr. Bean's Holiday was directed by Steve Bendelack.^[4] The film began shooting on 15 May 2006.^[5] Its working title was "French Bean".^[6]

It was the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief.^[7] Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch was broadcast on the Comic Relief telethon on BBC One on 16 March 2007. The movie's official premiere took place at Leicester Square's Odeon in London on Sunday, 25 March, and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity.

Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer in November 2006,^[8] and in December 2006 launched an official website online.^[9]

Plot

The film opens with Mr. Bean (Atkinson) attending a raffle in June. As the grand prize raffle number called to be 919, Mr. Bean is upset and throws his raffle ticket which ends up in a toy train cart. The ticket being 616 is read upside down and becomes 919. Mr. Bean grabs the ticket before the final call and claims his prize. The prize is a holiday involving a train journey to Cannes, a Sony video camera, and €200. Bean proceeds to film the entirety of his travels on the video camera.

Following a misunderstanding involving a taxi at the Gare du Nord railway station in Paris, Bean is forced to make his way on foot towards the Gare de Lyon to board his next train towards Cannes. Upon discovering the train won't leave for another hour, he has time to sample French seafood at Le Train Bleu restaurant. Unable to communicate in French, he accidentally orders oysters and langoustine, which he cannot bring himself to eat. He pours the oysters into a nearby lady's handbag, and eats the whole langoustine without removing the shell.

Back on the platform, Bean asks a man, who happens to be a Cannes Film Festival jury member and Russian movie critic Emil Dachevsky (Roden), to use his camcorder to film his walking onto the train. By the time they are done, the TGV is about to leave. Although Bean manages to get onto the train, the doors close before Dachevsky can get on. Dachevsky's son, Stepan (Baldry) is left on board by himself. Bean attempts to befriend Stepan, who gets off at the next stop to meet his father. While confronting a threatening stranger who approaches Stepan, Bean accidentally misses the train's departure, leaving his bag aboard. The train that Stepan's father has boarded does not stop at the station, and he holds up a mobile number, but the last two digits are obscured. When their efforts at calling the number prove fruitless, they board the next train, accidentally leaving Bean's ticket and passport with $2 behind which results in the duo are forced off the train.

Attempts at busking by miming to Puccini's O mio babbino caro (sung by Rita Streich) and other music prove successful in a shopping area. Bean buys a bus ticket to Cannes but loses his ticket when it gets caught in the breeze and then snagged in the talon of a chicken, which is subsequently loaded into a farm pick-up. Bean steals a nearby bicycle and follows the pick-up, only to reach a large chicken pen with no hope of finding the ticket. While he is on the farm, the bicycle is run over by a passing tank. After attempting to steal a moped and almost getting killed by a lorry, Bean falls to sleep in a village but wakes up to realize that he stumbled onto a set for a TV advertisement, which he accidentally blows up, injuring the director Carson Clay (Dafoe).

Hitchhiking, Bean is picked up by actress Sabine (De Caunes), whom Bean encountered at the commercial filming, driving the same car as Bean. She is on her way to the 59th Cannes Film Festival where Carson Clay's film in which she makes her debut is going to be presented. When they stop at a service station, Bean finds Stepan in a café with musicians whom he met when he never got on the bus. He joins them. When Sabine falls deeply asleep on the way due to Bean accidentally activating a lullaby on her cellphone, he then drives the car himself happily, finally reaching Cannes.

When Sabine goes into a petrol station to change for the premiere, she sees a newsflash depicting Bean as Stepan's kidnapper and Sabine as an accomplice. Not wanting to miss the premiere, they plan to get into Cannes without being identified. Stepan dresses up as Sabine's daughter, while Mr. Bean dresses up as Sabine's mother. They manage to get through the search and Sabine arrives at the premiere on time.

After sneaking into the premiere, the trio begin to watch Clay's picture "Playback Time," a shameless vanity production written by, produced by, directed by, and starring Clay himself. From the first few moments, the audience is horribly bored. Sabine tells Bean that her big scene is coming up, but is disappointed to see that her role has been cut from the film. Bean, hoping to cheer up Sabine, goes to the screening room and plugs his video camera into the projector. The ensuing scenes, heavily featuring Sabine, fit director Clay's narration so well that the director, Sabine, and Bean all receive standing ovations. Clay's initial anger fades and he embraces Bean and gives him a kiss, while Stepan is finally reunited with his father.

After the screening, Bean leaves the building and goes to the beach, encountering many of the other characters including Sabine and Stepan. The film ends with Bean and all the other characters of the film miming a large French musical finale, lip-syincing the famous song by Charles Trenet, "La Mer" (Beyond the Sea).

Cast

Rowan Atkinson at a premiere for the film in March 2007

• Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean
• Max Baldry as Stepan Dachevsky
• Willem Dafoe as Carson Clay
• Emma de Caunes as Sabine
• Steve Pemberton as Vicar
• Lily Atkinson as Lily at the stereo
• Preston Nyman as Boy with train
• Sharlit Deyzac as Buffet attendant
• Francois Touch as Busker accordion
• Arsène Mosca as Traffic controller
• Stéphane Debac as Traffic controller
• Philippe Spall as French journalist
• Jean Rochefort as waiter in Le Train Bleu restaurant
• Karel Roden as Emil Dachevsky
• Pascal Jounier as Tipsy man
• Antoine de Caunes as TV presenter
• Michael Pelozuelo as the almost handsome man in the audience
• Miguel Espaldon as a civilian

Music

The film music was written by Howard Goodall. It has a symphonic orchestration, a sophisticated score instead of the show's tendency to simple musical repetitions and features catchy leitmotifs for particular characters or scenes.

Reception

As of 24 August 2007, the film had a score of 56 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 26 reviews.^[10] On Rotten Tomatoes, 50% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 107 reviews (54 "fresh", 53 "rotten") and the critical consensus stating "Mr. Bean's Holiday means well, but good intentions can't withstand the 90 minutes of monotonous slapstick and tired, obvious gags."^[11]

The film was met with mixed reviews by critics. Matthew Turner of View London gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and said "Crucially, the film-makers have decided to make Bean more of a bumbling innocent, than the obnoxious and frequently mean-spirited character of the TV show", and that the film is a "surprisingly sweet comedy" with inspired gags and is much better than the previous film.^[12] BBC film critic Paul Arendt gave the film 3 out of 5 stars, saying "It's hard to explain the appeal of Mr Bean. At first glance, he seems to be moulded from the primordial clay of nightmares: a leering man-child with a body like a tangle of tweed-coated pipe cleaners and the gurning, window-licking countenance of a suburban sex offender. It's a testament to Rowan Atkinson's skill that, by the end of the film he seems almost cuddly."^[13] Philip French of The Observer referred to the character of Mr. Bean as a "dim-witted sub-Hulot loner" and said the plot involves Atkinson "getting in touch with his retarded inner child." French also said "the best joke is taken directly from Tati's Jour de Fete."^[14] Wendy Ide of The Times gave the film 2 out of 5 stars and said "It has long been a mystery to the British, who consider Bean to be, at best, an ignoble secret weakness, that Rowan Atkinson’s repellent creation is absolutely massive on the Continent." Ide said parts of the film are reminiscent of City of God, The Straight Story, and said two scenes are "clumsily borrowed" from Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Ide also wrote that the jokes are weak and one gag "was past its sell-by date ten years ago."^[15] Steve Rose of The Guardian gave the film 2 out of 5 stars, said the film was full of awfully weak gags, and "In a post-Borat world, surely there's no place for Bean's antiquated fusion of Jacques Tati, Pee-Wee Herman and John Major?",^[16] while Colm Andrew of the Manx Independent said "the flimsiness of the character, who is essentially a one-trick pony, starts to show" and his "continual close-up gurning into the camera" becomes tiresome.^[17]

Peter Rainer of The Christian Science Monitor gave the film a "B" and said "Since Mr. Bean rarely speaks a complete sentence, the effect is of watching a silent movie with sound effects. This was also the dramatic ploy of the great French director-performer Jacques Tati, who is clearly the big influence here."^[18] Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, saying "Don't mistake this simpleton hero, or the movie's own simplicity, for a lack of smarts. Mr. Bean's Holiday is quite savvy about filmmaking, landing a few blows for satire." Biancolli said the humour is "all elementally British and more than a touch French. What it isn't, wasn't, should never attempt to be, is American. That's the mistake made by Mel Smith and the ill-advised forces behind 1997's Bean: The Movie."^[19] Ty Burr of the Boston Globe said "Either you'll find [Atkinson] hilarious—or he'll seem like one of those awful, tedious comedians who only thinks he's hilarious." Burr also said "There are also a few gags stolen outright from Tati", but concluded "Somewhere, Jacques Tati is smiling."^[20] Tom Long of The Detroit News said "Watching 90 minutes of this stuff—we're talking broad, broad comedy here—may seem a bit much, but this film actually picks up steam as it rolls along, becoming ever more absurd." and also "Mr. Bean offers a refreshingly blunt reminder of the simple roots of comedy in these grim, overly manufactured times."^[21]

Suzanne Condie Lambert of The Arizona Republic said "Atkinson is a gifted physical comedian. And the film is a rarity: a kid-friendly movie that was clearly not produced as a vehicle for selling toys and video games." but also said "It's hard to laugh at a character I'm 95 percent sure is autistic."^[22] Lawrence Toppman of The Charlotte Observer gave the film 2½ stars out of 4 and said "If you like [the character], you will certainly like Mr. Bean's Holiday, a 10-years-later sequel to Bean. I found him intermittently funny yet almost unrelentingly creepy", and also "Atkinson doesn't have the deadpan elegance of a Buster Keaton or the wry, gentle physicality of a Jacques Tati (whose Mr. Hulot's Holiday inspired the title). He's funniest when mugging shamelessly..."^[23]

Ruthe Stein of the San Francisco Chronicle said "the disasters instigated by Bean's haplessness quickly become tiresome and predictable" but said that one scene later in the film is worth sticking around for.^[24] Elizabeth Weitzman of the New York Daily News gave the film 2 out of 4 stars and said "If you've never been particularly fond of Atkinson's brand of slapstick, you certainly won't be converted by this trifle." and also "If the title sounds familiar, it's because Atkinson intends his movie to be an homage to the 1953 French classic Mr. Hulot's Holiday. Mr. Hulot was played by one of the all-time great physical comedians, Jacques Tati, and that movie is a genuine delight from start to finish. This version offers a few laughs and an admirable commitment to old-fashioned fun."^[25] Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star gave the film 2 stars and said "If you've seen 10 minutes of Rowan Atkinson's Mr. Bean routine, you've seen it all", and "The Nazi stuff is a bit out of place in a G-rated movie. Or any movie, really", later calling Atkinson "a has-Bean."^[26] Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film 1½ stars out of 4 and said "If you've been lobotomised or have the mental age of a kindergartener, Mr. Bean's Holiday is viable comic entertainment" and also, "The film, set mostly in France, pays homage to Jacques Tati, but the mostly silent gags feel like watered-down Bean."^[27]

Rating

In the UK, it was classified by the British Board of Film Classification as PG for containing "irresponsible behaviour."

This film was originally given a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America for brief mild language, but Universal cut out most of the language (leaving Stepan saying "damn" in Russian in one shot and the same word in French in a later shot) so the film would be rated G by the MPAA.^[28][29] It was one of the few Universal theatrically released films to be rated G. The first film, by contrast, was rated PG-13. It is much cleaner in content than the original film.

DVD release

Mr. Bean's Holiday was released on DVD and HD DVD on 27 November 2007. The DVD version is in separate widescreen and pan and scan for the US markets formats. The DVD charted at No. 1 on the UK DVD Chart on its week of release.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ "Mr Bean's Holiday (2007)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=bean2.htm. Retrieved 16 August 2009. 
2. ^ Moviehole.net, URL accessed 25 February 2007
3. ^ Paramount Comedy, URL accessed 25 February 2007
4. ^ Movies Online, URL accessed 25 February 2007
5. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday at the Internet Movie Database, URL accessed 25 February 2007
6. ^ IMDB, URL accessed 19 April 2011
7. ^ Comic Relief site, URL accessed 25 February 2007
8. ^ http://video.uk.msn.com/v/en-gb/v.htm?g=8AAB9DF9-B14D-4DEB-9112-58FAD6DE1EA4&f=&fg=copy
9. ^ http://www.beansholiday.com
10. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007): Reviews. Metacritic. Retrieved 24 August 2007
11. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday – Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 24 August 2007
12. ^ Matthew Turner (28 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday – London Movie Review". ViewLondon. http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/films/mr-beans-holiday-film-review-18668.html. Retrieved 25 August 2007. 
13. ^ Paul Arendt (29 March 2007). "BBC – Movies – review – Mr Bean's Holiday". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2007/03/26/mr_beans_holiday_2007_review.shtml. Retrieved 25 August 2007. 
14. ^ Philip French (1 April 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Observer. UK. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-1174237/reviews.php?critic=columns&sortby=default&page=8&rid=1612195. Retrieved 25 August 2007. 
15. ^ Wendy Ide (29 March 2007). "Mr Bean’s Holiday". The Times. UK. http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/film_reviews/article1580632.ece. Retrieved 25 August 2007. 
16. ^ Steve Rose (30 March 2007). "Mr Bean's Holiday". The Guardian. UK. http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,2045559,00.html. Retrieved 25 August 2007. 
17. ^ Review by Colm Andrew, IOM Today
18. ^ Peter Rainer (24 August 2007). "New in theaters". The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0824/p14s01-almo.html. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
19. ^ Amy Biancolli (23 August 2007). "Savvy satire on filmmaking". Houston Chronicle. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/movies/reviews/5049133.html. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
20. ^ Ty Burr (24 August 2007). "Clowning around is all in good fun". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/movies/display?display=movie&id=9209. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
21. ^ Tom Long (24 August 2007). "Broad comedy hits its marks". The Detroit News. http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070824/ENT02/708240399/1034. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
22. ^ Suzanne Condie Lambert (24 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's Holiday". The Arizona Republic. http://www.azcentral.com/ent/movies/articles/0824bean0824.html. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
23. ^ Lawrence Toppman (23 August 2007). "After 12 years, Atkinson's 'Bean' act still child's play". The Charlotte Observer. http://ae.charlotte.com/entertainment/ui/charlotte/movie.html?id=935229&reviewId=22638&startDate=08%2F24%2F2007. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
24. ^ Ruthe Stein (24 August 2007). "Look out, France – here comes Mr. Bean". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/24/DDBSRNBBS.DTL&type=movies. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
25. ^ Elizabeth Weitzman (24 August 2007). "This Bean dish isn't for all tastes". New York Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2007/08/24/2007-08-24_this_bean_dish_isnt_for_all_tastes.html. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
26. ^ Phil Villarreal (23 August 2007). "Mr. Bean's reverse Midas touch getting old". Arizona Daily Star. http://www.aznightbuzz.com/stories/197439.php. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
27. ^ Claudia Puig (23 August 2007). "Humor in 'Holiday' isn't worth a hill of Bean". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/reviews/2007-08-23-mr-beans-holiday_N.htm. Retrieved 24 August 2007. 
28. ^ Mr. Bean's Holiday (2007)
29. ^ Latest MPAA Ratings: No. 59 | Movie News | RopeofSilicon.com Entertainment News

External links

• Official website
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at the Internet Movie Database
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at AllRovi
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Rotten Tomatoes
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Metacritic
• Mr. Bean's Holiday at Box Office Mojo
• Working Title films page
• Mr. Bean's Holiday pictures