Mr Bean's Holiday

Director: Steve Bendelack
Screenwriter: Robin Driscoll, Hamish McColl
Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Willem Defoe, Emma de Caunes
Running time: 88 minutes
Certificate: PG


A couple of years ago news filtered through that music was being used to torture prisoners kept at Guantanamo Bay. The repetitive, monotonous and grating quality embedded within these songs was supposed to lure the captives into a confession. Well, if the authorities have any sense they’ll be shipping out any available prints of Mr Bean’s Holiday over there as a matter of urgency. Lock any able-minded person in a room with this cinematic atrocity and they’ll admit to anything as a means of escape.

We follow Mr Bean (Atkinson) as he attempts to reunite a boy with his father after a series of mishaps on his way to a holiday in Cannes. Along the way, he encounters crustaceans, a vanity-ridden director (Defoe) and an amorous young lady. As for the viewers, we encounter nothing but deeply unpleasant tedium.

What attempts to pass for humour in this film are protracted sequences of Bean pulling faces, Bean walking in a bizarre manner, Bean dancing in a village square and so on. It appears that the filmmakers felt it sufficient simply to point the camera at Rowan Atkinson and pray that everything will fall into place. A decade has passed since the last Mr Bean film so there’s no excuses for the writers to not dream up some remotely funny scenarios for the character to encounter.

The tragic thing about this film is that Mr Bean was once a pure joy to behold. Throughout the various half hour television shows of the late 1980s/early 90s there were many hilarious moments. Who can forget Bean ordering the steak tartare and then trying to discreetly hide the raw meat, or his fear at undressing on a beach only to discover that the only man nearby was blind?

There’s nothing near approaching any of those situations here. Instead, we have protracted sequences of Bean simply gurning at the camera endlessly. This kind of performance only works within a suitably funny framework and the total lack of inspiration is plainly evident. What could have been going through the undeniably talented mind of Rowan Atkinson whilst shooting the film? As for Willem Defoe – a classy actor – one can only rationalise that he wanted to boost his bank balance a bit.

What’s there to say about the direction? Not a great deal, apart from the fact that switching the cameras on and calling “action” was a mistake.

Perhaps the most pathetic attempt at a motion picture ever and one that makes Martin Lawrence’s canon look Oscar-worthy, Mr Bean’s Holiday is an abomination.
















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