Mon Père, ce héros

Proof positive that Depardieu is a star of international magnitude: even a pedestrian comedy like this warrants theatrical release in Britain. André (Depardieu), a divorced middle-aged businessman, takes daughter Véronique (Gillain) away for Christmas, but her bathing-suit makes him wonder whether Mauritius was such a good idea. At 14, she is not his little girl any more. Much smitten with one particular youth, Véronique impresses him with a tapestry of lies: she is a runaway, and André her sugar-daddy lover. Only when André is enveloped in the deceit do things perk up momentarily, and still the picture lumbers from laborious farce to shameless sentiment with all the grace of a beached whale (an image Depardieu brings to mind). The bovine sensibility of this tacky, tasteless blague is underscored with misogyny and a scurrilous hint of racism.