That’s wonderful ! *

by Clovis Cornillac

French film, 1 h 37

The discovery of an abandoned baby by a couple is a frequent motif in tales. Clovis Cornillac takes it over. Nature lover and aesthete beekeeper, Pierre Feuillebois only learned of the beginning of his existence when his parents died, crushed in their house by the collapse of a tree.

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Forty years earlier, when they found an infant in a bassinet on their doorstep, they decided to keep it without telling anyone. They raised him in the Alps, far from the world and its turpitudes. After the accident which cost them their lives, Pierre receives from one of their relatives an envelope containing the keys of a house in Lyon, a check which should allow him to live for some time, as well as a letter raising a corner of the veil on his story and his biological mother.

A quest for identity

It is resolutely on the side of the fable that That’s wonderful ! Innocent as a newborn, Pierre has never set foot in school and knows nothing of the habits and customs of our society when he arrives in Lyon. “What matters is not where you come from but what you become”, had stated his father just before dying. Launched in a quest for identity, Pierre comes up against social services for whom officially he does not exist.

In these administrative maze, this great candid meets Anna who, touched by his kindness, decides to help him find his mother. Scandalized by the song That’s wonderful !, intoned by Dario Moreno, the film displays acid shades in which Pierre clashes by losing its colors as it searches.

A mixture of comedy and fantasy, this feature film sins by a few lengths, wanderings and caricatures like a reception center for children run by an absurdly malicious Catholic. That’s wonderful ! can nevertheless seduce spectators sensitive to the world of tales by the tenderness of its heroes embodied by Clovis Cornillac and Alice Pol, as well as by the poetry (supported) around Pierre, passionate about botany who cultivates his secret garden. The director allows himself an affectionate tribute to his mother, actress Myriam Boyer.