Gladiator duo Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe re-team for this adaptation of author Peter Mayle’s best-selling novel about a London-based investment broker who inherits his uncle’s chateau and vineyard in Provence, where he spent much of his childhood. He discovers a new laid-back lifestyle as he tries to renovate the estate to be sold.
As a child, Max Skinner (Freddie Highmore) was taught to appreciate the finer things in life, yet 25 years later Max (Russell Crowe) is now an affluent stockbroker wheeling and dealing in the ruthless world of London business, leading his ‘lab rats’, as he calls his troops, in an unscrupulous manoeuvre that nets his company tens of millions of dollars.
When Max learns that his uncle Henry (Albert Finney) has recently passed away and that he is the sole beneficiary of his late uncle’s estate, the keen businessman rapidly arranges a flight to France in order to assess the value of the old property and get it ready for sale.
After Max arrives to find the vineyard in a run-down state, his troubles are further increased by the stubbornness of gruff estate winemaker M. Duflot (Didier Bourdon) and the unexpected arrival of a determined Californian beauty named Christie (Abbie Cornish), who presents herself as Uncle Henry’s long-lost illegitimate daughter claiming that La Siroque estate is hers. Meanwhile, the overstressed Max reluctantly finds himself falling for the charms of a local Fanny (Marion Cotillard), whose formidable guard is quickly worn down by the smitten beneficiary.
This is essentially a story about a ferociously aggressive soul-less city boy re-discovering life’s worth and the simpler pleasures in a picturesque setting in France.
It is a perfectly pleasant movie; an easy-to-watch, feel-good film but it lacks substance and grit. It is a generic rom-com that seemingly fails in the romantic and comedy part.
