This time around, Bean wins a free trip to the beach at Cannes, France. The vacation remarkably coincides with the annual Cannes Film Festival. Bean's blundering manages to separate a French boy, Stepan (Max Baldry) from his father. Bean's abilities as a surrogate father to Stepan are complicated by the loss of his luggage and money. Luckily, help arrives in the form of the cutest and friendliest aspiring actress in France, Sabine (Emma de Caunes), who for some reason is travelling to Cannes alone, and actually likes Bean despite his chronic eccentricities.
Bean is now wanted by the police, suspected of kidnapping Stepan. Can he reach Cannes? Return Stepan to his father? Exonerate both himself and the career of self-involved director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe)? Turn Sabine into a moviestar? And achieve his French beach resort vacation? Need I say that the answer is Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes?
How others will see it. This movie is aimed at European audiences, who flocked in greater numbers to see Bean than their American counterparts. Thus, the dialogue is principally French, with the exception of Dafoe's portentous narration of his pending Cannes flop.
"Bean" the British television show has its devoted PBS following in the States, and the same can even be said for Bean the movie. But Atkinson's character is clearly less popular on this side of the Atlantic. The reason for this is cultural. Americans are raised to fear and despise strangers who show signs of mental illness. Bean, through many American eyes, is creepy, even menacing. Definitely a man to avoid. On the other hand, if Bean were deadly serious, in a cool sort of way, carried a huge weapon, and shot a large number of suspected bad guys, then he could be openly embraced by American culture.
Go figure. Meanwhile, Europeans are prone to see Bean as Americans saw Ernest (as in Ernest Saves Christmas), as a harmless goof.
How I felt about it. Bean wasn't a good movie, and I had admittedly low expectations of Mr. Bean's Holiday. I was surprised. It was better than I thought it could be. There is a welcome element of chaos, and the improbable salvaging of Dafoe's opus nicely ties together with Bean's obsession of filming every moment of his "vacation." It even manages to give Sabine a reason to like Bean, despite making her an accessory to his presumed kidnapping.
Now if only Bean himself was funny. He makes weird faces, dances like an idiot, and walks away (quickly) from his mistakes. Give credit to director Steve Bendelack. He does a decent job, given what he has to work with.