I saw this last week on the French satellite channel TV5. The film tells the story of a young woman called Claire who works in the office at a garden centre. Claire is plain and painfully (almost debilitatingly) shy. The staff social committee has organised a weekend in Rome and when one of the group has to drop out, Claire is pressured into taking her place, since without ten people, the trip cannot go ahead. Reluctantly, she goes and quickly becomes the butt of the group's jokes. She finds herself increasingly isolated, especially when the group finds out that the new management at the garden centre is thinking about making redundancies and they believe that Claire has inside knowledge which she is not telling. Her time is miserable until she strikes up a friendship with the handsome Italian guide, who is in charge of the party. Needless to say, there are a series of incidents which cause Claire to blossom and the ugly duckling eventually becomes a swan. This is a lighthearted story which is predictable, but nonetheless entertaining and which ends on a feelgood note.
