Mon père, ce héros.

After brushing up on my French for a few weeks, I decided to brave this movie without English subtitles. I own a copy of the 1994 remake and know it like the back of my hand, but just to make sure I'd have the dialog practically memorized, I watched it the night before. Luckily, for the first half of the movie, the French and English version of My Father the Hero are nearly identical! The mother-daughter squabble in the apartment, the voicemails on a faceless girlfriend's machine, driving up to the hotel in a jeep and complaining that the guests are all old people, the moon going behind a cloud after he yells at her to come outside and look, forbidding her from dating musicians, the thong bathing suit, the older man at the bar offering to photograph her-as you can see, the list is extensive. I was able to understand everything they said until the last twenty minutes, and even then, I was able to piece together words, phrases, and context.

Gérard Depardieu stars in both, as the father of a fourteen-year-old girl making the transition from girl to woman via the discovery of her hormones. While on a tropical vacation, Marie Gillain develops a crush on a local boy, and thinks pretending she's with her boyfriend instead of her dad will impress the older kid. I know, the premise is a little sick, but if you can take it for what it is-a comedy-you'll be fine.

Except... the 1991 original isn't a comedy. Yes, the water-skiing scene is still in there, and the "You have a daughter?" sequence is the same, but this version is a drama. Because of the very slight, but very crucial change, I didn't end up liking the movie, while the remake remains one of my favorites. The story is about a young girl first discovering romance who makes a gigantic mistake by lying and pretending she has experience when she hasn't. Once she confesses what she's done to her father, he's livid, but he agrees to go along with her lie-hence the title. The movie is called My Father, the Hero, not My Father, the Bad Parent. At the end of the movie, you're supposed to think he did the right thing, bonded with his daughter, and helped her transition out of adolescence with grace and courage. At the end of this movie, I thought the exact opposite. One small example of the difference: the closing lines of both films are exactly the same, but in 1994, Gérard laughed, and in 1991 he cried.

I'd recommend sticking with the Disney version. It's far more uplifting, and it greatly improved the story. With such an odd premise-pretending her dad is her boyfriend-you're going to need a total laugh-fest to get through it, and the original just makes you depressed.