The only good part is the perspective of the kids. Diane Kurys.has an eye for cinematography, and mostly kids.

For the rest, she better directed some TV-series or alike. She knows the business, though this movie looks wooden, lacks depth. Rather on the shallow side, early evening before prime time.

This movie looks like being done by some good handy-man; and yet not really artistically.

The narration of a summer vacation of two children, whose mother has decided to leave her husband, and instead mingle with a much younger artist. This relationship lacks any visible chemistry, except that both seem to have been cast.

There's a bit of overdone comedy by the landlord. The to-be-left husband, though played pretty well, doesn't get to develop this role. When the little one leaps into his arms, it is plainly visible that she does because she was told to.

The good, and likewise sad, part is the display of the interacting among the children, their difficulties in coping with the situation, their personal development while the separation of the couple develops further, and becomes more and more obvious.

The French seem to have a talent for making a completely believable sense of time and place in films. And characters. A lot of French movies feel less like standard films than time capsules perfectly preserved. It is so easy to believe what you're seeing is real, or that what you're watching actually happened.

These movies, perhaps as a corollary, often leave much semblance of plot behind in the pursuit of realism, and that's fine. It makes a welcome change from plot-driven Hollywood films.

However, this can be an issue at times, such as when a movie needs a resolution. "C'est La Vie" is an example. The movie feels so real that a climax seems overtly stagey anyway, but here it's also surprisingly depressing. And it seems to come out of nowhere. The depressing ending isn't foreshadowed at all, so it's a slap in the face, and almost made me angry.

I enjoyed the movie for most of it, though. It's about two girls, twelve and eight, who go away for a holiday to the seaside in 1958. The older girl has a puppy-love romance develop with a boy, while cracks become more apparent in their parents' relationship.

The parents didn't evince much sympathy from me. I wish the focus had been on the kids more. Possibly, then, seeing the failure of their parents' relationship through their eyes, would have prepared us for the conclusion, making the ending sad and poignant rather than depressing and bewildering.

(1990) C'est La Vie/ La Baule-les-Pins (In French with English subtitles) DRAMA/ COMEDY

Co-produced, co-written and directed by Diane Kurys that has young girl turning 13, feeling the effects of her parents divorce while going on a beach vacation! While she narrates some of the story, her parents side of things are also shown at the same time, in a non-resolution kind of way! After my second viewing, since the first time I saw this flick, I was only a little kid and was interested in watching 'foreign films', except that it didn't appeal to me as much as right now. Written and directed by Diane Kurys that sometimes appear to be sort of an autobiography of her own life.