Ôtez-moi d'un doute (2017) Online

An explosion of feelings and emotions in this "dramedy" subtly written and perfectly played by a great cast. Highly touching movie, as the humanity of all the characters is nicely developed as the movie goes on. A main key of this sweet movie is as you get into it, you can not avoid merging it with your own life and family memories or happening. Whatever your own family issues may be, you are just bound to believe how deep and necessary this mess might be. Watching this movie may thus trigger regret or satisfaction depending on your own situation. There is also an intriguing absence all along: mothers' ones. Indeed, although various families' lives are depicted, none of them includes the crucial figure of the mother, dead for some, away for others ... Besides, fathers' personalities, despite their own weaknesses, have in common their strong humanity arousing sympathy for all of them. How to understand this very specific and compelling plot? I guess only screen writers, one of them being also the movie director, hold the keys to fully understand what can probably be linked with personal matters.

François Damiens was so convincing as the deaf head of family in LA FAMILLE BÉLIER that I had difficulty accepting that he is just as verbal as any normal person, and with excellent diction and capacity to act, to boot. He is very ably accompanied by the rest of the cast, especially the two old folks who might be, but are not, his father. Cécile de France is gorgeous and any man would fall for her in seconds, so it is no surprise that Erwan should do so on sight.

There are the usual complications but the film contains enough good humor to steer skillfully past the more serious issues, the soundtrack is extremely well picked, dialogue is quite sharp (apart from poor Didier, who plays the part of the not so bright father of Erwan's daughter's unborn daughter, and who keeps making mistakes... but is sharp enough to know that he is a loser).

I liked it all, apart from the unnecessarily stretched ending, that ill-advisedly repeated some of the music. Were it me, and I would have resolved the film with the DNA test result and the nearest room in the hospital.

That said, by then I had had plenty of fun and found my money well spent, so I am not complaining. 7/10

Erwan has a very unusual job...he runs a company along the French coast that disposes of buried munitions. It seems that with the billions of shells and mines cast about the area during WWI and II, even today these are many dangerous bombs being uncovered. But this difficult job is easy compared to what he's in for next. You see, Erwan has just learned that his father is not his biological father and his mother was apparently pregnant with another man's baby when she married. And, with Erwan's daughter pregnant now, he feels a strong need to find out more about his roots. So he pays a private detective to investigate...and soon she gives him a name of a man living only 10 miles away who is his biological dad. But what is he to do about this? After all, he loves his father and doesn't want to hurt him by looking for his biological father. And, to make things worse, he meets a woman and falls for her...only to find that she is the daughter of the man who he thinks is his biological father! She wants Erwan...and Erwan wants her...but she might just be his sister!!

The film is packed with lovely performances. Despite these folks not being big-name actors, they are all terrific. And, you can only assume that the director was in top form and the story gave them a lot with which to work. Well worth seeing!

"Ôtez-moi d'un doute" or "Just to Be Sure" is a French/Belgian co-production that resulted in this new 2017 French-language film. It runs for 100 minutes and was directed by Carine Tardieu, who is also one of the actually pretty many writers working on this project. I must say that I am not familiar with lead actor François Damiens, but he did a good job, and Cécile De France is of course pretty well-known, also outside France. This is basically the story of three generations: the old, the middle (including the protagonist) and the young. Actually you could add the very young too with the baby at the end. And fatherhood is what it is all about, about potential fathers, actual fathers, fathers who thought they were fathers but aren't etc. So maybe it is a good watch for you and your daddy on Father's day. I think the actors here all did a fine job. Some pretty charming portrayals and all the performances felt authentic. From start to finish I felt like I was watching real people indeed and not just actors, which is always a good thing. I also thought the film did a really good job with the tiny comedic parts that weren't too frequent so that they could have hurt the core stories, but frequent enough to provide comic relief in the face of the more dramatic plot points. And they were really witty and profited from the good execution of the material by the actors too. And it takes a bit attention away from the drama, which sadly does not always feel 100% realistic. The twist at the end is just one example. So now he isn't the son of the other old man all of a sudden? Did the private eye mess up? I guess they needed that for the romantically happy ending. Or that the other dad seemingly knew about it all along. Or the other guy suddenly leaving to get cigarettes. And there's more examples. They maybe went a bit over the top from time to time there. However, the characters and performances are just likable enough (really each and every single one of them) make it easy enough to look past some of the flaws in story-telling and enjoy the film for what it is: a little fun family drama with some really nice attention to detail. Another quality movie from France and there are so so many these days. I wish Germany came anywhere near that level in quantity, especially talking about comedies. Overall no hesitation for me to give it a thumbs-up. It's most likely closer to 4 stars than to 2 (out of 5) and I definitely recommend checking it out. It also never gets too serious really, which is good and fits the tone better than if they had included concrete references on death. The ending is rewarding too. He may not have found his father, but he found love and he found friendship. Finally, another scene I quite liked was the initial reaction by the new (old) dad who just felt it was all too much for him before he contacted his son again hoping to have won a new family member. Overall, this one certainly deserves to be seen, not necessarily in a theater, but maybe at home from a DVD. Watch it. And also check out another new French film "Le fils de Jean", which is about a very similar subject.