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Nicholas on Holiday

Nicholas on Holiday (Les Vacances du petit Nicolas)

Movie · 2014 · 15 people

Nicholas on Holiday (French title Les Vacances du Petit Nicolas; in Turkey Pıtırcık Tatilde) is a 2014 French family comedy. It is based on the children's books by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé about young Nicolas and his friends. Nicolas ranks among Goscinny's best-known characters after Asterix and Lucky Luke, and this film is the sequel to the 2009 Little Nicholas. It was released in France on 9 July 2014 and in Turkey on 11 July 2014.

The story begins as the school year ends. Nicolas goes to the seaside with his family and spends the summer at the Hotel Beau-Rivage. As usual he makes new friends on the beach, but he is terrified of a wide-eyed girl called Isabella, because he thinks his parents mean to marry him off to her. A string of misunderstandings makes the holiday unforgettable for everyone. The cast includes Mathéo Boisselier, Valérie Lemercier, Kad Merad, Dominique Lavanant, François-Xavier Demaison, Bouli Lanners and Lionel Abelanski.

Laurent Tirard, who directed the first film, returns as director and co-wrote the script with Grégoire Vigneron. Fidélité Productions produced it, and it runs about 97 minutes. The next film in the series, Le Trésor du Petit Nicolas, followed in 2021.

DirectorLaurent Tirard
Production companyFidélité Productions

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Cast

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Lionel Abelanski Lionel Abelanski Actor · 62 years old Valérie Lemercier Valérie Lemercier Actor · 62 years old Bouli Lanners Bruno Lochet Christian Hecq Daniel Prévost Dominique Lavanant Francis Perrin François-Xavier Demaison Jean-Michel Lahmi Judith Henry Kad Merad Luca Zingaretti François Damiens Barbara Bolotner

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Through different eyes

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humour and heart.

Nicholas on Holiday is an easy choice for a family with children. The humour comes from misunderstandings, so don't expect crude jokes or harsh scenes. Little Nicolas's fear of being married off to Isabella will strike children as funny, and adults will smile at his innocent logic. You can follow it without having seen the first film. It works for school-age children, and for grandparents too.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Goscinny and Sempé's books are made of short, self-contained episodes, and that structure is exactly the problem Laurent Tirard faces in stretching it to feature length in this sequel. The hotel and the beach make a good stage for a run of sketches, but after a while the chain of misunderstandings repeats the same rhythm rather than building any dramatic rise. The film's strength is that it keeps the books' child's-eye view as a mirror held up to the small vanities of the adult world. Yet the story never recaptures the fresh surprise of the first film: charming and carefully made, but a sequel that stays within the limits of its formula.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film looks at the French middle-class summer holiday ritual, the weeks at a seaside hotel once school is out, through a child's eyes and with a light satirical touch. Nicolas's fear that his parents will marry him off is a comic exaggeration, but it also nods at a family order in which adults decide on children's behalf. Because the hotel throws different types together, it works like a small scale model of society. Goscinny's world belongs to a particular era and a particular class; for today's audience it can be read as a nostalgic postcard of France.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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