A sexy French summer comedy sounds like a good enough idea. Throw in some gay people, some straight people, a beautiful landscape, various misunderstandings, and a teenage son who frequently jerks off in the shower. There is potential. Yet Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's "Cote'D'Azur" simply doesn't cut it, not even as a pleasant diversion.
Free-spirited mother Beatrix (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) is almost discomfiting to watch in her short shorts, tiny t-shirts, various bathing suits, and frequent moments of undress. The rugged, conventional father (Gilbert Meki) doesn't know that he's gay at the onset, but the film's big surprise (yes, reader, I am giving it away) is telegraphed from the beginning. The first half hour is enjoyable enough, but the sexual shenanigans of one not terribly appealing Parisian family in one rundown beach house become quickly tedious.
The easy reconciliation of the family, culminating in a song and dance number, absolutely does not ring true.
