Cote d'Azur

This is a sophisticated adult treat in the French manner with an attractive and gifted cast and is essentially serious, yet often whimsical and always compassionate.

A finely balanced piece of comedic machinery.

You know this movie is French (apart from the subtitles), because everyone looks great, gets naked and later breaks into a peppy musical number about the joys of lobster and shellfish.

Real-life partners Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau wrote and directed this frothy sex farce, incorporating musical numbers that recall Jacques Demy; the results are middling, but the actors' verve compensates for the clumsy choreography and lackadaisical camerawork.

In the end, all these sexual shenanigans just provide an excuse to play some seductive music and drink in some seaside scenery. Ah, Europe.

Bruni-Tedeschi is her usual radiantly libidinal presence, but channeling Bette Midler doesn't become her, and even she can't redeem all the redundant vaudeville carry-on.

It's hard to make a dull movie with copious nudity and all kinds of sex (straight, bi and gay), although French filmmakers Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau manage to do so in Cote d'Azur.