Mr. Bean's Holiday

Overview

Overview Mr. Bean's Holiday is the second film based on the television series Mr. Bean, following the 1997 film Bean. News of the second movie first broke in early 2005, suggesting that it would be written by Simon McBurney, although in December 2005, Atkinson stated that the screenplay was being written by himself and longtime collaborator Richard Curtis. The screenplay was finally confirmed to have been written by Robin Driscoll, Simon McBurney and Hamish McColl. Atkinson also said that Mr. Bean's Holiday will be the last Mr. Bean story. Unlike the 1997 Mel Smith film, Mr Bean's Holiday was directed by Steve Bendelack. The film began shooting on 15 May 2006. It will be the official film for Red Nose Day 2007, with money from the film going towards the charity Comic Relief Prior to the film's release, a new and exclusive Mr. Bean sketch was broadcast on the Comic Relief telethon on BBC One on the 16th March, 2007. The movie's official premiere took place at Leicester Square's Odeon in London on Sunday, March 25th and helped to raise money for both Comic Relief and the Oxford Children's Hospital Appeal charity. Universal Pictures released a teaser trailer in November 2006 and in December 2006 launched an official website online. The second full length trailer made it online late-January 2007.

The film opens with Bean's lime-green minihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Bean#Mr._Bean.27s_Mini driving up to a church, where Mr. Beanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Bean#Mr._Bean (Rowan Atkinson) gets out and puts a padlock on it. Inside a raffle is being drawn with Mr. Bean appearing to have ticket number 616. However, the number called out for the grand prize is 919 and a disappointed Bean throws his ticket away where it lands on a model train carriage. Taking a closer look at the train set, he sees his ticket upside-down, showing the number of 919, and wins the grand prize: a holiday involving a train journey to Cannes, a video camera, and €200. Next we are in Paris train station Gare du Nord with Mr Bean coming off the train. He has to go to Gare de Lyon to get his next train to Cannes. He goes over to a taxi and asks to take him there. However, another man boards that taxi before him. A couple asks the next taxi to take them to the Grande Arche. Thinking it is his taxi, he gets in. When he gets to the arch, the map tells him the compass direction to get to the train station. He then walks in that direction with the aid of his compass, in a straight line. He walks up Champs-Elysees, over the top of steps and benches and eventually gets there. His train is going to leave in 5 minutes so he goes to the vending machine. He takes a €10 banknote from the end of his tie, where he keeps his money, and puts it in the banknote slot. However, his tie becomes trapped in the machinery. By the time he has managed to wrench his tie out of the machine, the train has left. He now has to wait an hour for the next train. So he goes to a restaurant and orders a seafood platter. One of the delicacies on the platter are live oysters, and he finds them to be extremely unpleasant. While pretending to eat them he drops them one by one into his napkin, after which he manages to put the oysters in the handbag of the lady sitting at the table beside him. He then has prawns but has to leave as the lady reaches for her mobile phone in her handbag now filled with Bean's oysters. Moments later she screams but luckily Bean is nowhere to be found.. On the platform Bean asks a man, who happens to be Russian movie director Emil Duchevsky (Karel Roden), to use his video camera to film him walking onto the train . Bean makes a big fuss and keeps asking for retakes so as to get the perfect shot. By the time they are done, the train is about to leave. Although Bean manages to get onto the train, the doors close before Duchevsky can get on. Duchevsky's son, Stepan (Max Baldry) is therefore left on board by himself. Running alongside the departing train, Duchevsky shouts to his son to get off at the next station. Mr Bean sees that Stepan is upset and feels sympathy and guilt for him. He tries to cheer him up by making faces at him, something that Stepan is not amused with. After a while, Stepan gets irritated by his antics and slaps him. Later, Bean wakes up on the train and sees the boy getting off the train as it is a stop. Mr Bean sees a drunken man approach Stepan, causing Bean to be concerned about the boy's well-being; he gets off as well and tells the drunken man to go away, and then he looks to see if his dad is there. He isn't. When he returns back to the train, he realises that the boy has stolen his video camera. By the time he gets it back, the train is pulling away from the station with his suitcase and belongings. While both wait on the platform, Stepan playfully imitates Bean. Although they cannot understand each other's language, (Stepan speaks only Russian) some friendship develops. The next train then comes by with Duchevsky on it. However, this train is not stopping. Duchevsky holds up a piece of paper with his mobile phone number on it and asks his son to call him. Bean then chases the train while trying to record the number, but then trips up. When they check the footage, they do get the number, however Duchevsky fingers are covering up the last 2 digits. Bean and Stepan then begin to call all the 100 possible numbers. We watch a number of scenes involving their calls: a toddler dropping the phone in a drink, a phone in the pocket of a dead person at the mortuary, a man killing himself by jumping from the Pont du Gard after the phone call, interpreting it as showing rejection by his lover, and the cleaner in the hotel room of Duchevsky. The next train comes and they get on it. However, Bean has left his wallet, passport and ticket on the telephone box. He runs into the toilet to hide from the ticket woman. However, there is already a man in it. Bean runs out where he meets the ticket woman. Bean and Stepan then get thrown off the train as they do not have tickets. At the station, Stepan successfully manages to beg a woman for money to phone his father, by pretending to cry. Mr Bean also attempts to do so but fails. Mr Bean is then caught on CCTV with the boy. The police are suspicious of their actions and they have to escape quickly. They go to the local market where Mr Bean starts dancing to various musical pieces that a stall holder is playing on his CD player in an attempt to earn money. They eventually mime to O mio babbino caro, an aria from Puccini's opera Gianni Schicchi, playing out a death scene, in which Bean carries Stepan and lays him on the ground. When Stepan raises his head too soon Bean pushes it down with his foot. The act earns them plenty of money. They use the money to buy food and bus tickets to Cannes. Just as Bean is getting onto the bus, he drops the ticket. The wind in the surroundings then causes the ticket to fly away, until it gets stuck on a chicken's foot. A van (Peugeot 504 pickup) then arrives and a man puts the chicken into the back of the van. Bean steals a bike and starts cycling after the farmer's van. The boy gets off the bus and gets invited into a Volkswagen campervan by a band. After a while, Bean gets exhausted while cycling. He then manages to hold onto a car driving by. The car then makes a right turn and the momentum gained by the bicycle enables Bean to go extremely quickly, overtaking cyclists in the Tour de France.He eventually reaches the van, but is forced to back off when a dog (who was hiding on-guard in the van) barks at him. He leaves his bike outside the farm and runs into the barn. However, there are thousands of hens in the building and it is almost impossible to find the one which has the bus ticket stuck to it. When he leaves the barn, he finds his bike crushed. Footage from his video camera, which was inside the basket and undamaged, shows that a German tank has run over it, Bean looks around, bemused. Bean attempts to hitchhike. In the distance he sees a moped approaching. It is very slow and takes a long time to arrive. Bean is offered a ride, but, because the man is slow to depart, Bean tries to steal the moped and drive away with it. However, the man catches Bean and he has to get off the moped. The man then drives away. Bean goes into a wooden outhouse by the side of the road and gets locked inside. A flurry of cars go by while Bean is inside, including Stepan in the band's Volkswagen. Also a bus stops. Bean eventually manages to lift the toilet into the middle of the road where it gets hit by a semi-trailer. Miraculously Bean walks out unharmed. He then continues his journey on foot. Mr Bean soon falls asleep, exhausted from walking. He wakes up on what appears to be a quaint French village but is actually a film set for a yoghurt advert and is smitten by the girl he saw at the train station, Sabine (Emma de Caunes). Suddenly, actors playing German soldiers start storming the scene, along with the same tank that crushed his stolen bicycle. Bean, oblivious to the fact that he is on a movie set, saves the girl from the explosion. It is only after this that he realises that it is fictional. The director's aide then ushers him to the changing room and asks him to dress up as a WWII German soldier, believing that he was one of the many background actors. Even while acting in the film he keeps on filming with his own camera, and director Carson Clay (Willem Dafoe) tells him to stop. However, he continues to be a nuisance and eventually gets sacked by Clay. He then has to leave the film set. However, first he charges his camera, for which he unplugs the pyrotechnics trigger, spoiling a film take. After he puts the plug back and leaves, the director triggers the pyrotechnic charge whilst giving out to the technician. Bean then tries to hitchhike again and a lime-green Mini identical to his with a sunroof drives past. Coincidentally, Sabine is the driver. She offers him a lift to Cannes and thanks Bean for 'saving' her. She is an aspiring actress on her way to the 59th Cannes Film Festival where the film in which she makes her debut as an extra is going to be presented. When they stop at a service station, Bean finds Stepan dancing in a cafe with the band he was hitchhiking with. Sabine agrees to take him with them. Due to communication difficulties, Sabine thinks Stepan is Bean's son, while Stepan thinks Sabine is Bean's fiancee. On the road again, Bean asks Sabine if she has a cellphone, which she promptly gives to Bean. Bean and the boy now attempt to call his father again, but to no avail. Bean soon ends up fiddling with the selection of the handphone's ring tones to keep awake. He accidentally selects a lullaby and causes Sabine, who is already exhausted, to collapse on the steering-wheel sound asleep. Bean manages to take over the wheel get's into a strange position, spins the car, which results in him being in the driver seat and Sabine in his seat, Sabine and Stepan are amazingly still fast asleep. However, he is also very tired. Trying his best to keep awake, Bean bites himself and burns himself with the car's cigarette lighter, he finally resorts to keeping his eyes open with matchsticks. By the morning the car has run out of petrol, Bean manages to drive the car to a petrol station. When Sabine goes into the shop to change for the premiere, she sees a newsflash, Mr Bean is suspected of kidnapping Stepan and that she is suspected to be his accomplice. She realises that there has been a large manhunt for Bean and Stepan. Since Sabine does not want to miss the presentation of the film in Cannes in just one hour, she does not want to go to the police now to clear the misunderstandings. Therefore, they have to work out a way to get into Cannes without being identified. Stepan dresses up as a girl while Mr Bean dresses up as Stepan's grandmother. They manage to get through the search and Sabine arrives at the premiere on time. There is a short presentation by Carson Clay, the director, producer, and lead actor of the film, about his movie, Playback Time. The film then starts with both Sabine and Duchevsky in the audience. Mr Bean and Stepan attempt to get into the backstage by using a fake VIP pass but when Bean realizes that it won't work, he knocks out the security guard examining the pass, only to be spotted and chased by another. Bean and Stepan run (which as Bean is wearing high-heels, is difficult for him) until Bean hides Stepan at the other side of the screen while he goes in to find Duchevsky. Sabine's part in the film finally arrives but the director has cut her part from the film, except for her walking up to Clay's character and asking him if he's alright (as his character is mourning a break up with his former partner) and walking away from him, with Clay's character voicing-over that he should've found someone else by now (over the part while she's walking to him) and then saying that it didn't last (at this part she is walking away from him). Sabine is angered and frustrated by this, and Bean takes pity on her. He then has an ingenious idea and brings his video camera into the projection room. He then manages to make his video diary of the trip (in which Sabine is frequently seen) appear on the film screen. The video ends with a shot of Stepan just as he walks out from under the screen. The audience then gives a standing ovation. Clay, who was first upset about the disturbance of the screening of his film, now pretends that the whole combination of film and video is his movie. Duchevsky, who is at the festival as a member of the jury, is relieved that his son is back. After the film, Bean leaves the building by the backdoor. He sees the beach of Cannes through the door and walks in a straight line to it with his video camera, stepping from a roof onto various gradually lower car roofs, etc. At the beach he is overjoyed. He meets many of the people whom he previously encountered on the beach. Sabine is admired as a big star in the film. The film then ends with Bean and all the other characters of the film miming a large French musical finale, which called "La Mer" (The Sea), with arms raised in the air. After the credits Bean writes with his foot "fin" in the sand.

Trivia

Rowan Atkinson has stated that the character of Mr. Bean was partially inspired by Monsieur Hulot, a comedic creation of French actor, director, writer and producer Jacques Tati. The English title of the first of the Hulot films (released in 1953) was Monsieur Hulot's Holiday. * Mr. Bean's first name is revealed to be Rowan as seen in a quick glance of his passport. * The scene in which Bean tries to entertain Stepan with silly faces, the scene where Bean attempts to eat French cuisine in the restaurant, the scene where Bean uses matchsticks to stay awake and the scene in which his bike is crushed by a tank, could be references to similar scenes from the first Bean movie and original TV series.

DVD

The movie will be released on DVD on 31 August 2007