A Good Year
2006
*
Director: Ridley Scott
Cast: Russell Crowe, Marion Cotillard, Albert Finney, Didier Bourdon, Isabelle Candelier
A workaholic London stock broker inherits his uncle's house in Provence. He flies there to sell it fast, but...you can guess the rest. It's based on a novel by Peter Mayle whose autobiographical books lovingly depicted Provencial food, wine and people. Now he rolls out every imaginable xenophobic stereotype and fish out of water cliché. Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott are both useless at comedy, and this stinker doesn't get anything right. The protagonist's transformation from a self-absorbed and boorish womaniser to a relaxed and life-loving romantic doesn't have one credible second in it.
