Funniest film of 2009? The Hangover, for sure. A close second was In the Loop. And the third funniest was this one, The French Kissers.

A French go at the awkward-teen-trying-to-get-laid genre (French Pie perhaps?), this film revolves around teen boys Hervé and Camel, and their clumsy attempts to get up-close-and-anatomical with their female peers. It takes confident girl Aurore, making a successful move on Hervé, for either of them to even get close to their fantasies. But of course tongues, jealousy, awkwardness and lonely mothers all conspire to up-end the world that they thought they knew.

Director Riad Sattouf wrote graphic novels about teenage experiences (like “Return To Junior High”) before he made this and it’s clear he knows what he’s on about, as well as how to inject humour into the reality (seriously, some of the scenes in this film induced some of the biggest belly laughs of the year from me). It’s interesting how, this semester, the films we are showing about the sexual coming-of-age of girls are all deep, meaningful and dramatic (An Education, Genova), whilst the ones about boys are simply hilarious. Maybe it’s always been like that.

Anyway… the painful and hilarious antics of teenage horny boys come across well in any language, so if you need a good laugh tonight come along and see this.

The Road To Guantanamo, Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story, Wonderland, 24 Hour Party People, Welcome To Sarajevo, Code 46, Jude, 9 Songs, A Mighty Heart.

Apart from using up my allowed word allocation for this review, this list also gives you an idea of how diverse Michael Winterbottom is as a director. I know we’ve shown at least 7 of those films in the past 11 years here at ANUFG, so chances are you’ve seen some.

Genova is his go at realist drama. Colin Firth (enjoying a good year, with both this and A Single Man) plays a father, struggling with grief over his wife’s death, who takes his two daughters for a year to Genova, Italy. The younger daughter is trying to deal with emotions stemming from the feeling that she was responsible for her mother’s death, whilst the older one is going through all the “sexual awakening” stuff teenage women apparently go through (us men, we don’t “awaken”, we just go from young boys to young horny boys in one fell swoop. But I digress…). Catherine Keener provides good support as one of Firth’s colleagues.

If you can’t cope with slow-moving movies that don’t have much of a plot, but dwell more on the emotions of the situation, then leave this one to those of us that do (go and see New Moon instead). For the rest of you, come along and let this movie take you on a gentle journey. You won’t regret it.