At one point in The New Adventures of Cinderella, which I covered last time, the evil stepmother (Josiane Balasko) consults her magic mirror (I guess this is standard-issue for evil stepmothers; maybe it’s an MLM scheme), but she has forgotten her password, because it’s funny when magical objects act like smartphones. One of the recovery questions is her favorite movie. She looks around to make sure she’s alone, then whispers in a barely audible tone: “Les Tuche… 2.”
Such is the reputation of The Tuche Family that an abjectly poor film like The New Adventures can make it the butt of one of its jokes. It’s pure hypocrisy, I might add, since Cinderella came from the same creatively bankrupt minds that brought us Aladdin and Alad’2, where Jean-Paul Rouve—Jeff Tuche himself—plays the Vizier, of “Fuck the Vizier” fame. A part of the joke is that there is somehow more than one Tuche film. In fact, in our timeline, there are four Tuche films—that’s one for every season, one for every canonical Gospel, and one for every loaded chamber in my next game of Russian roulette. Having once caught the original on television in the dying embers of a long-forgotten Christmas, I had to put my finger on the outsize popularity of a series that exhausted its premise within twenty minutes of the first installment.
And what is that premise, exactly? The Tuche family consists of Jeff (Rouve), always sporting a fanny pack* and a haircut that strikes the golden mean between a mullet and a Jewfro.
He has a wife, Cathy (Isabelle Nanty), and three children: wannabe gangsta rapper Wilfried (Pierre Lottin), ditzy Stéphanie (Sarah Stern), and child prodigy Donald (Théo Fernandez). Oh, and mealy-mouthed Grandma Suze (Claire Nadeau). Jeff is jobless by choice, and his family is poor… at least, until Cathy wins the lottery. They pack up their bags and head to Beverly Monaco. Then the United States, the Élysée Palace, and back to their fictional hometown of Bouzolles. Does that sound like the worst thing in the world? Let’s crack open the door to Room 101 and see what’s inside…
The Tuche Family (Les Tuche, Olivier Baroux, 2011)
This is the story of a young man named Don—Donald Tuche, alias Quack-quack, because of the duck. This is a blissful reminder that in 2011 Donald Duck would be the first point of reference for that name (their neighbors in Monaco, the Assads, do not fare as well). Not that he has much in common with the other Donald. While he has the temperament of a pre-adolescent and his family is a clown show, the youngest Tuche is both market-savvy and capable of making wise investments. He is also our narrator, introducing us in the opening minutes to the rest of his family. Then he explains how his mother won the lottery at the point where, in a conventional film, the first act would be. Narrative efficiency! The best efficiency! Tremendous!
Just like that, everyone is now in Monaco. Over the course of ninety languid minutes, nothing will happen. Literally nothing. The movie feints in the direction of a parable about learning how family is more important than money, but it never rises to the level of having a plot. They just spend their money on frivolities (a mansion, a Photomaton, a food truck) until they go broke. It’s not even a series of sketches, for that would imply the existence of jokes. The film isn’t just unfunny. Its gags are, structurally, not jokes. There’s a lot to pick from, so I’ll stick with those which will be of some consequence for future films.
The weirdest recurring gag in the entire series is that Jeff Tuche does not know how to pray. In the first film, he forgets the words to the “Our Father.” That’s it. That’s the joke. Another thing about Jeff is that he loves fries. I don’t know if that is even supposed to be a gag. But fries feature prominently in every installment. Then there is his habit of repeating things a million times for comic emphasis. This also happens in every film. Here is an example from the original, when he corrects a real estate agent who calls him “Monsieur Fuche.” I have tried to capture the musicality of the original in my translation:
And me, I’m Tuche, with a “T.” As in: There you are. You’re there, you’re there or you’re not there. You’re not there? Then where are you? Where are you? You’re not there? You’re not there? Where are you? Ah, you’re there! You’re there or you’re not there with a “T,” like Tuche, like “There you are.” Tuche, there you are.
And so on.
As for Wilfried, he styles himself “Tuche Daddy,” wears ostentatious bling, and drives around in a Humvee. He is also revealed to be gay in the very first scene he appears without his family. This comes as a revelation to himself and to others. Never mind if it’s funny that his alpha male posturing is a front for something else (it’s not), is it even supposed to be a joke?
Next up we have Stéphanie, who attends a party and asks the DJ to play Breakbot’s “Baby I’m Yours.” She dances solo for about thirty seconds before the film cuts to Wilfried and his beau counting stars (“There must be at least sixty-four!”). Her dancing is unremarkable—it’s not good but it doesn’t register as comically inept. I don’t know why it’s in the film except to establish that one onlooker in the crowd—footballer** Georges Diouf (Ralph Amoussou)—is into Stéphanie. He is the one non-Tuche character to appear in all four films (in fact, the one non-Tuche to appear in more than one film).
Individually, each of the characters has about as much character development, screentime, and charisma as the alien in Alien. I had even forgotten, before rewatching the film for this column, that Stéphanie and Grandma Suze were characters. Grandma, by the way, is the absolute worst. She carries around a stuffed dog and speaks incomprehensibly (except for the last line of the last film, she is always subtitled). Across ten years and four films this flaccid joke never changes.
Anyway, this movie has no plot, and it wasn’t even filmed in Monaco, so I won’t waste any more words on it. Ensuite!
The Tuche Family: The American Dream (Les Tuche 2: Le Rêve Américain, Olivier Baroux, 2016)
In my initial draft of this column, I had some placeholder text about The Tuche Family 2 being the third worst thing to happen in 2016, but that’s a bit harsh. This is the crown jewel of the Tuche series, a solid 3/10 film, with some pleasant needle drops (in place of “Ride of the Valkyries” and Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, we now have Grand Funk Railroad’s “American Band” and The Edgar Winter Group’s “Free Ride”), at least one functional joke, and Sarah Stern’s Stéphanie Tuche in some very flattering dresses.
The scenario, as given to us by Quack-quack: The Tuche family is still wealthy (though no longer living in Monaco). Now 16, Donald is studying at some fictional university in California to improve his English. And he’s in love. He has met Jennifer (Alice Morel-Michaud), an alleged university student who looks even younger than he is. She is the scion to the rich asshole Carrington family, and Mr. Carrington (Ken Samuels) wants to mold Donald in his image. So he arranges for him to join the prestigious Epsilon fraternity. Just the one letter. Epsilon, like the dummy class in Brave New World.
Anyway, Donald must decide whether he’s a Carrington or a Tuche, and he must act quickly because his family has planned an impromptu visit for his birthday. But they land in Kansas instead of California, because Jeff has an abiding love for Little House on the Prairie (never mentioned before this film—and never mentioned again), and they can make a road trip out of it. Stupid but occasionally amusing things transpire, such as when Wilfried (whose voice has gone up several octaves, just as Donald’s has gone down) practices his English with phrases like “Thank you, bitch” and “Your pants are fucking nice, asshole.”
Once they reach the Carringtons—halfway through the film—we have our one well-constructed joke. Mr. Carrington—who has been misled by Donald into believing Jeff is a plastic surgeon—asks him, “You must have done many rhinoplasties?” Now, no reasonable person would ever ask about rhinoplasties when they could ask about boob jobs (but hold that thought). The setup is dumb and obvious, but the payoff is not. Jeff has no goddamn clue what he has just been asked, so he stares blankly. Stock footage of a rhinoceros flashes by for an instant. And Jeff responds, “Assuredly.” I didn’t laugh at this (I did laugh at “Thank you, bitch.”), but points for effort.
The second half of the film drives this goodwill into a ditch. The road trip ends, the Tuche family stays in America, and, this time, they really are in Beverly Hills. Jeff even opens an actual clinic but advertises it like a used car sale, pitching his services to those with “little boobs” (this means fewer than two, I gather). The characters disperse, and it’s just the first one all over again. I’m not even going to bother describing it, except that the story ends in Vegas with Wilfried getting gay married to his gardener, Juan. The first one ended with Jeff accepting his daughter’s engagement to a Black footballer, making this the second time in a row the series skirts uncomfortably close to the plot of Serial (Bad) Weddings.
Speaking of which—what’s a French comedy without a little casual racism? No other film in the series sinks to this depth, but this one’s got the goods! What of Georges? He is first seen when Stéphanie walks in on him with two handfuls of groupies (“It’s not what it looks like!”). She leaves him, and he spends the entire film trying to win her back. Hélas, he runs afoul of America’s most notorious gangs of organized criminals: first the TSA, then the KKK, and finally the LAPD. If he didn’t reappear in the next two films, I’d assume Georges was dead.
Finally, we have the raw sewage that is Grandma Suze. She saves the family from peril when they find themselves on a “Sioux” reservation. The whole sequence is as unfortunate as it is long. I know about blackface and yellowface. I don’t know if redface is a thing, but this guy’s face is literally painted red:
Grandma can actually communicate with the natives and will continue to dress like them for the remainder of the film, holding onto this newfound identity with the tenacity of a US senator. There’s also some stuff about the Amish, but they’re not reading this, so I don’t feel like going to bat for them. Ensuite!
The Magic Tuche (Les Tuche 3: Liberté, Égalité, FraterniTuche, Olivier Baroux, 2018)
If the last five years have taught us anything, it’s that there is nothing funny about a celebrity president. America had one. Ukraine, at the time of this writing, still has one. And France has had one since 2017! What if the idea that no qualifications was the best qualification was a joke instead of a mortifying reality? It would be as funny as Servant of the People, for one. And much shorter. So that’s one point in Liberté, Égalité, FraterniTuche’s favor.
Like the others, the third film opens with a voiceover. But it’s Cathy, not Donald, who is updating us on everyone’s whereabouts. That signaled to me that something was deeply wrong. And, in fact, the series is essentially pressing the reset button. Donald will henceforth be useless. Wilfried’s marriage is dissolved in the opening minutes. His sexuality will never be referenced again. Stéphanie is reunited with Georges like nothing happened. The writers had no idea what to do with Grandma Suze. Instead of killing her off, she’s now a goth rocker. Hilarious.
Somehow Jeff is now the mayor of Bouzolles. When a planned high-speed train stop that would connect his hamlet with the rest of France falls through, he makes a direct appeal to the French president (Philippe Magnan), then decides to run for president himself. This leads to the strongest act in any Tuche film. First, Jeff’s opponents drop out of the race due to absurd controversies, then he must square off with the incumbent in a debate that is uncomfortably close to what the real presidential debate is like (a veneer of civility that quickly devolves into barely coherent nonsense and ad hominem attacks). It is, by some margin, my favorite scene in the whole series.
The Tuches then settle into their new home in the Élysée, and just like any other time these morons settle anywhere, the film dies. One subplot involves Jeff’s search for a new prime minister, which he advertises in local businesses. One of his experienced political advisers (Scali Delpeyrat) recommends a man named Thierry Lhermitte, not the actor (of the comedy troupe Le Splendid, star of The Jackpot!) but a “homonym.” “Oh no!” says Jeff. “He’s not a homonym, he likes women! Apologize immediately!” Hilarious. Later, Jeff meets Angela Merkel, the (now) former Chancellor of Germany, but she is played by a man (François Bureloup).
Imagine the comic opportunities if Jeff had met with Sanna Marin instead.
Nicolas Maury, who plays Hervé in the acclaimed television show Call My Agent!, is also in this trash. Whatever disrepute this may have brought to him as an actor, it was the right decision financially. This was the highest-grossing French film in 2018. Ensuite!
The Tuche Family 4 (Les Tuche 4, Olivier Baroux, 2021)
Circumstantial evidence (a character wearing a “Miss Noël 2020” sash) suggests that the most recent Tuche film was a casualty of the pandemic, but even an act of God couldn’t keep the Tuches down for good. Until now, the series focused on fish-out-of-water stories, placing the lower-class Tuche family in upper-class settings. This is the only installment to take place entirely in their hometown of Bouzolles. And yet, even though all the other films open in Bouzolles, something is still off. The family has purchased a new home, and so the familiar set of the previous three is nowhere in evidence.
Something else that is off: All three Tuche children are now full-grown adults (a plot point in the third one is that Donald finally “got his noodle wet”), yet they all live under the same roof. Even the newest member, Jiji (Lenny Joubij), the son of Stéphanie and Georges, lives at Grandpa’s. And wouldn’t you know it, Stéphanie is preggo again! It’s not a plot point. I think Sarah Stern was for-real pregnant, and they just kind of worked it into the scenario (Fact check: She gave birth in spring 2020). I’m not even sure the other characters mention it.
You know what the movie is about? It’s about factories. Jeff, still improbably rich, buys a factory with the intention of employing local workers to produce Christmas toys. His direct competitor is his own brother-in-law, Jean-Yves, played by Michel Blanc of the comedy troupe Le Splendid. He works for Magazone, a faceless conglomerate that is a play on both the French word for shop (magasin) as well as Amazon (Just click on the banner and then seamlessly go about your purchases!).
So instead of the usual antics, we have a cat-and-mouse game of corporate espionage. Jeff is aided by a mysterious fellow Grandma Suze found on Old People Tinder named Pierre Noël (François Berléand). Considering that the French name for Santa Claus is Père Noël, his true identity should not come as a great surprise. It’s like having an End Times thriller where the president of the UN or Oxfam or whatever is named Andy Christ. More surprising is that Pierre Noël intends to bump uglies with Grandma Suze. Isn’t he a married man?
Anyway, the combined efforts of Pierre Noël and Wilfried Tuche results in this damnable abomination, Bobo the Bastard, a doll-shaped thing that says something approximating to “Merry fucking Christmas! Ha ha ha.” It probably comes alive while you sleep.
Even by the low standards of this series, The Tuche Family 4 is vacuous and conflict-free. It is especially galling to see Michel Blanc’s talents wasted in such a way. Like many French comics, he appears in a lot of crap (he was in Aladdin with Rouve). Rouve isn’t better than this material, but Blanc definitely is. He was the title character in Monsieur Hire, for chrissakes, one of the great neo-noirs (and one of Roger Ebert’s Great Movies). Seeing him slumming this badly is like a dagger in the heart.
This is the end of the Tuche family adventures for now. But it probably won’t stay that way.
*For our British readers: You would call this a “vagina pack.”
**For our American readers: A “soccer baller.”
Gavin McDowell is a Hoosier by birth and French by adoption. He received his doctorate in “Languages, History, and Literature of the Ancient World from the Beginning until Late Antiquity” and is currently investigating Aramaic translations of the Bible. He is supremely unqualified to talk about film. For more of his unprovoked movie opinions, see his Letterboxd account.
Bad French Cinema Index
Part 1: French Films with Famous Remakes
Part 2: French Animation
Part 3: Serial (Bad) Weddings
Part 4: Live-Action Fairy Tales
Part 5: The Tuche Family
Part 6: Asterix and Obelix