As fans of Rowan Atkinson's perennially pleasing character Mr. Bean well know, where Bean goes, mayhem is bound to follow. In the case of Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal), Bean is off to Cannes on the French Riviera after winning first prize in a church raffle.
Like any proper Englishman, Mr. Bean is thrilled at the prospect of leaving the beastly English weather behind and basking in the warmth. But few journeys since Odysseus tried to make it home from Troy have turned out to be this complicated.
After a taxi ride to the wrong side of Paris and a meal that would make even a gourmand cringe, Mr. Bean unintentionally manages to separate Emil (Karel Roden), a Russian film critic on his way to the Cannes Film Festival, from his young son, Stepan (Max Baldry). From here on, for better or worse, Mr. Bean and the stranded boy are a team and must somehow work together to reach their common destination.
During a brief separation from Stepan, Bean stumbles onto the set of self-obsessed movie director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe). Here he reaps his usual harvest of comic catastrophes, but also encounters a charming young actress named Sabine (Emma de Caunes).
When it later turns out that Sabine, too, is on her way to Cannes for the film festival, she becomes the third member of Mr. Bean's traveling circus. Can Mr. Bean's good intentions, Stepan's innocence and Sabine's Gallic verve see the three of them through?
As directed by Steve Bendelack, Mr. Bean's Holiday is an unmitigated delight: It's gentle, ingenious and should be as appealing to children as it is to adults. The comic chemistry between Atkinson and Baldry is enchanting, as is the nonchalance with which de Caunes' Sabine accepts the whole range of Mr. Bean's eccentricities.
Dafoe's character provides another comic highlight, beside himself with delight as he watches his own film, even as the audience around him squirms with boredom.
Whether sending up the film industry, French pretensions about food or the modern tourist's obsession with videotaping every detail of a holiday abroad, Atkinson is a master of the absurd. He also has the self-confidence and technical command to hold the screen for 90 minutes without ever once delivering a full sentence of dialogue.
The film contains some mild scatological humor and a few slightly frightening scenes that might upset very young children. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-I — general patronage. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is G — general audiences. All ages admitted.
