Mr Bean
Mr. Bean’s Holiday is a 2007 comedy film directed by Steve Bendelack and written by Hamish McColl and Robin Driscoll, from a story penned by Simon McBurney. Based on the British sitcom series Mr. Bean created by Rowan Atkinson and Richard Curtis, it is a standalone sequel to Bean (1997). The film stars Atkinson in the title role, with Max Baldry, Emma de Caunes, Willem Dafoe and Karel Roden in supporting roles. In the film, Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes, France, but on his way there, he is mistaken for both a kidnapper and an award-winning filmmaker when he travels with both a Russian filmmaker’s son and an aspiring actress in tow.
Produced by StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Tiger Aspect Films, Mr. Bean’s Holiday was theatrically released in the United Kingdom on 30 March 2007 and in the United States on 24 August 2007 by Universal Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics, though it was generally considered to be an improvement over its predecessor. The film was also a commercial success, having grossed $232.2 million worldwide against a $25 million budget.
Plot
On a rainy day in London, Mr. Bean wins a holiday trip to Cannes, a video camera, and €200 in a raffle. Upon arriving in France, Bean causes chaos while trying French seafood cuisine at Le Train Bleu and asks Russian movie director, Emil Duchevsky, to film him boarding his train using his video camera at the Gare de Lyon. However, the two keep doing retakes at Bean’s request until the train leaves with Bean and Duchevsky’s son, Stepan, onboard and Duchevsky left behind.
Bean and Stepan bond and get off together at the next station, where Duchevsky’s train passes through the station without stopping; he holds up a sign with a mobile phone number written on it for Stepan to call, but due to inadvertently obscuring the last two digits, Bean unsuccessfully calls the number numerous times. Bean and Stepan board the next train stopping but are ejected as Bean had accidentally left his wallet, passport and ticket on the telephone booth.
To earn money, Bean busks as a mime/singer and buys himself and Stepan food and bus tickets to Cannes. However, Bean’s ticket gets caught in the wind and into the foot of a chicken, which is then packed into a truck that Bean chases via bicycle to a farm, where he is unable to retrieve his ticket due to the large number of chickens there. Deciding to continue his journey alone on foot, Bean wakes up on a quaint French village under attack from Nazi soldiers, which is revealed to be the set of a yogurt commercial directed by American filmmaker Carson Clay. Bean briefly stars in the commercial as one of the soldiers before being dismissed for showing his video camera in the advert, and accidentally causes the set to explode while recharging his camera.
Continuing to hitchhike, Bean is picked up by a Mini identical to his own driven by aspiring actress Sabine, who is on her way to the Cannes Film Festival, where her debut film directed by Carson, Playback Time, is to be presented. The pair stop at a café, where Bean reunites with Stepan and Sabine decides to take him with them, believing Stepan to be Bean’s son. The next morning, the trio arrive in Cannes thanks to Bean driving the group throughout the night before after Sabine falls asleep.
At a gas station, Sabine sees on the news that she and Bean are suspected of kidnapping Stepan. In a rush to Playback Time’s premiere which is starting in merely an hour, she decides not to head to the police to clear the misunderstandings and instead has Bean and Stepan disguised as her mother and daughter to avoid detection at the festival. During the premiere, Sabine discovers that her role has been cut from the film, prompting Bean to plug his video camera into the projector and replace the film’s visuals with his video diary. The camera’s footage of Bean’s shenanigans surprisingly aligns well with the film’s narration and Carson, Sabine and Bean all receive a standing ovation while Stepan is reunited with his parents.
Bean exits through the theatre’s back door and finally arrives at the Cannes beach as desired, where he, Sabine, Stepan and a group of other people mime a large musical finale to the song “La Mer”.
