Life Is a Long Quiet River

Stars: Helene Vincent, Andre Wilms. Before French director Etienne Chatiliez made the disappointingly mean-spirited Tatie Danielle (1991), he concocted this clever satirical update on Twain's The Prince and the Pauper. After being introduced to two families--the irreligious, grungy, poor, crooked sloblike Groseilles, and the impeccably correct, anal-retentive, wealthy, church-going Le Quesnoys--we discover, as do the families, that a miffed nurse switched a baby girl Groseille with a baby boy Le Quesnoy some 12 years earlier. The Le Quesnoys are properly aghast, and immediately make room for their long-lost son Maurice, while shielding their "daughter" Bernadette from the knowledge of her lowly parentage. The Groseilles, on the other hand, have no qualms about delivering up Maurice...for a price. As siblings from the respective families cross the tracks to meet their "new" relatives, all hell breaks loose. Maurice starts selling the Le Quesnoy's silver, a teen tramp from the Groseille side seduces the oldest Le Quesnoy boy, and so on. As the principals soon learn, life is not a long, quiet river, and it doesn't take a social revolution to break down class barriers--just a bit of scandal. Audience: Foreign film lovers will enjoy this; also those looking for a good not-so-clean anti-family film.