''My Father the Hero'' (original French title: '' Mon père, ce héros'') is a

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...

French film directed by

Gérard Lauzier Gérard Lauzier (30 November 1932 – 6 December 2008) was a French comics author and movie director, best known as one of the leading authors in the more adult-oriented French comics scene of the 1970s and 1980s. Biography Gérard Lauzier was bo ...

and starring Gérard Depardieu. An English language remake of the movie was made in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...

with Gérard Depardieu reprising his role. The name of the film comes from a famous poem by the French poet

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

, "''Mon père, ce héros''," published in 1859.

Plot

André ( Gérard Depardieu), a Frenchman who is divorced from his wife, takes his beautiful 14-year-old daughter, Véronique (

Marie Gillain Marie Gillain O.M.W. (born 18 June 1975) is a Belgian actress. In 1996 Gillain received the Prix Romy Schneider. She is single and has two daughters, Dune (born in 2004, with musician Martin Gamet) and Vega (born in 2009, with French-Italian a ...

), on vacation to a paradise island. She is desperate to appear as a woman and not a girl. In order to impress a local boy, Benjamin (Patrick Mille), she makes up more and more fantastic stories, starting with André being her lover – a sugar Daddy. André is desperate to make Véronique happy and so plays along with her increasingly elaborate invented stories about her life.

Production

Filmed on location on

Mauritius Mauritius ( ; french: Maurice, link=no ; mfe, label= Mauritian Creole, Moris ), officially the Republic of Mauritius, is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about off the southeast coast of the African continent, east of Madagascar. It ...

, the film introduces

as Véronique, as the young Véronique. Her portrayal of innocence laced with sensuality earned her a nomination for the César Award for Most Promising Actress for her performance. Depardieu, already an established actor, provides a trademark comical performance as André, the 'eager to please' father who does does the unthinkable for his daughter.

Cast

* Gérard Depardieu as André Arnel *

as Véronique "Véro" Arnel * Catherine Jacob as Christelle * Patrick Mille as Benjamin * Charlotte de Turckheim as Irina *

Gérard Hérold Gérard Hérold (Mulhouse, 10 September 1939 - Paris, 19 August 1993) was a French actor, appearing in several films, TV series and on theatre. Biography Gérard Hérold was born in Alsace in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin) on 10 September 1935. He studied ...

as Patrick * Jean-François Rangasamy as Pablo * Koomaren Chetty as Karim *

Benoît Allemane Benoît Allemane (born 28 December 1942) is a French actor who specializes in dubbing. He is the official French dub-over voice of Morgan Freeman. According to IMDb, he also provided the voice of King Harkinian in '' Link: The Faces of Evil''. ...

References

External links

* * * 1991 films French romantic comedy-drama films 1990s French-language films Films shot in Mauritius Films about vacationing Films directed by Gérard Lauzier 1990s French films {{1990s-France-film-stub