Girl on a Bicycle

Girl on a Bicycle is an irreverent, half baked romantic comedy that has a few funny moments tucked into a fim whose premise is both unbelievable and uncomfortable. Many of the jokes are about stereotypes, gendar roles, and other sophomoric topics.

Paolo is an Italian tour bus driver in Paris. His fiancé, Greta, is a German Flight Attendant. Paolo becomes smitten to the point of obsession with Cécile, a beautiful French woman on a bicycle. He follows her several times with his tour bus, (putting his passengers in jeopardy); the last he follows her, he actually hits Cécile with the bus. Oops. Hate when that happens.

She suffers a broken leg and arm, which renders her unable to care for her two adorable children, Julian, six, and Claire, five, who are in need of a father since their's flew the coop years before. Instead of being arrested, Paolo ends up taking care of Cécile and the kids, who fall in love with their stand-in father, a deed that he hides from his fiance, Greta. Eventually Greta, (played well by Nora Tschirner), gets suspicious, and follows him.

The lightness felt awkward given the film's topic and execution. The few laughs weren't worth the overall cringe-worthy elements for me.

This is simply adorable. Funny, often laugh out loud funny, this is a multilingual exposition of temptation, romance, longing and love with the type of twists that, yes, you tend to get in Europe, not the USA. There's no formula as such. It's not prudish. Yet, this is both wistful and amusing with a heartfelt core. You can't go wrong. From the opening scene of the stewardess and the engineer, the chuckles start and don't stop. It's a lot of fun.

Very much like a Hollywood RomCom (formulaic, predictable, fluffy romantic comedy)some of the other IMDb reviewers thought it was awful and some thought it super duper. For me, it was neither extreme. The lead actor carried his part well and the chemistry was fun and believable between him and his German girlfriend. After the bus incident, you could pretty much write the story yourself, but it was still enjoyable enough to watch it all develop (though I did consider fast-forwarding it in a few places.) The screenplay had a few very good lines, but they're gone from memory as I know the film will be by tomorrow.

I found this movie to be a fun, cheesy rom-com, and I say this as a person who's not usually a fan of rom-coms. I had a lot of fun spending time with these characters, and the plot was different enough that I didn't feel like I was watching the same stupid paint-by-numbers movie that rom-coms generally are.

The children were precocious, but not saccharine; the Italian lead could have had a little more emotion in his facial expressions, but otherwise, was a fairly solid lead, and the German fiancée was immensely likable, and made her dilemma - when she found out the truth - to be genuine and relatable. The British best friend was some nice eye-candy, and very likable as well, and the French girl on the bicycle and the womanizing Francois were also a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind hanging out with this bunch of people.

Overall, this movie isn't particularly deep, and it won't change your life if you watch it, but it would be a very enjoyable way to while away a rainy afternoon.

For the sake of fairness, I have to say something to balance the other reviews. Shortly: This comedy isn't funny at all.

Characters have no screen presence, except for Mr Considine. They just ooze around and talk to each other, in many uninspired dialogue scenes that will quickly bore you.

The film lacks personality and energy. The plot may sound interesting, but it would have been better delivered as a short. Plus, the whole thing looks amateurish.

This is the kind of film you may watch on TV on a countryside stormy day, when chances of power cuts are higher, for you can miss several minutes about anywhere with no fear of getting lost.