Nous irons à Deauville

A great cast does not necessarily make a good film.

"We are going to Deauville" is a well-calculated comedy about two Parisian couples who share a vacation home in Normandy's mundane sea resort Deauville. The plot mixes practical jokes about the old house (like falling off window shutters and the running gag of non-working electricity) with some frivolous flirts of the protagonist couples and adds some satirical elements that make fun of the typical Parisien on vacation.

The dialogs may have been quite funny in their time, but the script has not aged well. Although some of the topics are really timeless and going on vacation on the French coast has remained pretty much the same since the 1960s, the jokes drop in far too slowly and lamely to make contemporary audiences laugh. Things that may have been risqué and funny then sound definitely dusty and worn these days. Most of the supporting roles are just too clichéd to be really funny.

Louis De Funès has a minor role, but his character does not fully exploit the misanthropic stubborn character he played in later films. I had initially hoped for a lot more Funès-like fun, I was then ready to accept a witty comedy as well, but I was disappointed both ways.