Amateur movie with Big budget

Too much about the plot just didn't add up, the writing was bad, some of the scenes were cringey and awkward,

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This is yet another gem from the pen of Daniele Thompson - in fact that same year (1999) she wrote and directed La Buche, the first of three writer/director credits so far. Belle Maman is first of all 'French' whatever that means which is, of course, different things to different folks. The premise is simple: At the altar where he is marrying Mathilde Seigner, the groom, Vincent Lindon, gets his first glimpse of her mother, Catherine Deneuve, and suffers what the French call a coup de foudre which we know as love at first sight. In theory the story is either 1) over right then and there assuming he called the wedding off or else 2)just the beginning as he goes through with the wedding and thus lives a lie until it is resolved one way or the other. Thompson veers towards #2 but not without hitting us with the odd subplot along the way like, for example, Deneuve's cigar-smoking lesbian mother Line Renaud (in real life, if anyone cares, Renaud is in a long-term relationship with Stephane Audran, who co-stars here) and throws in a brilliant set-piece in a luxuriously appointed Men's Room at the wedding reception, which takes the form of a hilarious song-and-dance. Consummate writer that she is Thompson also leavens the comedy with drama like the brilliant climactic scene where Vincent finally spews out his feelings for Deneuve at a family gathering whilst simultaneously wrecking the joint. This is one to savour. Again and again.

What a terrible movie! It represents perfectly the state of degenerateness of French society, where the most elementary respect for wholesome values and traditions has completely disappeared. The plot is nonsensical, the movie is not funny at all and the characters are completely shallow and uninteresting. To say the least, the direction and the cinematography are very poor and uninspired. Catherine Deneuve is as bad an actress as she always was, even when she was directed by Bunuel in Belle De Jour. The rest of the usually good cast (Vincent Lindon, Line Renaud, Jean Yanne) seem completely lost in an ocean of vulgarity, platitudes and restlessness. I cannot help to draw a parallel with the wonderful James Ivory's "Le Divorce", with its thoughtful depiction of French and American mores, its superlative cinematography and stellar cast put to good use. Having watched "Le Divorce" you can feel a kind of empathy with the French, regardless of their foibles. "Belle-Maman" leaves you with only a nauseated contempt for its morally bankrupt and clueless protagonists.

I always loved French movies because I think they are filled with much more emotion and sense than the Americans. This film is a gem.Starting with the wedding which is so funny that you just want to join them and in the end where the little family kids tell us who is with who which is extremly funny. Catherine Deneuve is simply hot and so good that it is absolutely possible that a young man can fall in love with her, and Vincen Lindon is perfect for that role. The best scene (except the wedding party) is in the family reunion where Antoine has got mad and yells his feelings to Lea in front of the family. It is such a shame that I could buy this film only from the French and not from the English (so I have to learn in French to enjoy watching it)!!

Starting with a "My Name is Joe" like scene in Alcoholics Anonymous tBM careers into a mad spiral of infidelity, double standards and clandestine affairs. but what do you expect from a family of lawyers?A genuinely funny film, with some of the most outrageous characters since The Birdcage, plot and subplot are intertwined with surreal scenes of decadent Parisian life (ever been to a wedding reception in the gents toilet where the brides grandmother and her deranged girlfriend are smoking dope and cracking blue jokes? No, me either!) leading to a final scene of almost Arcadian symbolism.Excellent.