Life Is a Long Quiet River

A doctor, having fallen out with his mistress, confesses as revenge that twelve years earlier he swapped two babies in the maternity ward. So the son of the wealthy, devout Le Quesnoy family is really the child of the poor and chaotic Groseilles, and the reverse. When the news comes out, the two families tangle. The subject is not family but class as something learned. The swapped children resemble their biological families not at all; each carries the habits of the house that raised him, and all of the comedy comes from that mismatch. The form is unshowy and observational; the camera moves through both houses and the jokes come from comparison rather than from types. It is Étienne Chatiliez's first feature. He had been making commercials, and the eye in the film comes from that work: setting two ways of living side by side and advertising neither. It was an unexpectedly large box office success in France and was named best first film at the Césars. Benoît Magimel made his debut here as a child actor. Who it is for: viewers who like French social comedy and humour built on class. Who it is not for: anyone who needs the characters to be likeable; the film shows both families as ridiculous with equal severity.