Film / Mr. Bean's Holiday

Sabine: Who are you? Where are you going?
Mr. Bean: To the beach.

Train Waitress: Un caf?^Translation"A coffee" in French.
Mr. Bean: Oui.^Translation"Yes" in French.
Train Waitress: Du sucre?^Translation"Some sugar" in French.
Mr. Bean: Non.^Translation"No" in French.
Train Waitress: You speak very good French.
Mr. Bean: Gracias!^Translation"Thank you" in Spanish.

The second movie based on Mr. Bean following Bean. It is a loose remake of Mr. Hulot's Holiday, the film that originally served as the main source of inspiration for the character of Mr. Bean. In a way it seems somewhat like the series coming full-circle, as barring a few sparse reprises in TV spots and the 2012 Olympics in London, this film marked Rowan Atkinson's final major appearance as the Mr. Bean character, nearly 12 years after the original TV series ended. Significantly less Americanized than the first movie, this film sees the character returning to his near-mute origins and plays out more like an extended skit than a Big Damn Movie.

On his way to Cannes, Mr. Bean (Rowan Atkinson) accidentally loses his wallet and travel documents and accidentally separates a young Russian boy from his father, a filmmaker on his way to judge the Cannes film festival. Despite the language barriers, Bean sets out to reunite the boy with his father, see France and have his perfect holiday.

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Mr. Bean's Holiday contains examples of:

• As Himself: Played with. At first it looks like Willem Dafoe will be this. Then we learn he's a director, not an actor (although that is subverted too), and his name is Carson Clay.
• Alternative Foreign Theme Song: The Japanese release has OEDO-808 by Pistol valve.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: Seeing Stepan beg for money for the payphone, Bean tries the same tactic... but all he can say is "mush mush mush".
• Avoid the Dreaded G Rating: Averted. While Bean had slightly more Vulgar Humor to appeal to a movie-going audience, this film returns to the mostly family-friendly roots of the character enough to earn a G rating.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Carson Clay in his movie.
• Big Brother Instinct: Twice by Mr. Bean. The first time when he makes a drunk go away that was staring at Stepan and again when it looked like Sabine was being shot at by Nazis and he tackles her to the ground.
• Big Damn Movie: Played with. The plot's goal is much more mundane than the previous movie since Bean just wants to go to the beach. But just to get there, he has to get through a one hell of Road Trip Plot. Spoofed in the trailer where the deep-voiced narrator informs us that the movie is about "one man's journey...to the beach."
• Bilingual Bonus: Plenty throughout the film for speakers of French, and a fair bit of Russian as well.
• Black Comedy:
  • One of the possible phone number while trying to call the kid's parents is a down-on-his-luck man. He tells who he thinks is his ex to tell him she loves him or "it's over". After Bean hangs up, the man casually puts his phone back in his pocket and jumps from the bridge into the water.
  • Carson Clay's hijacked film has Bean goose-stepping while wearing a Nazi uniform as Clay narrates "looking back on the darkest moments of our history".
• Book Ends:
  • "La Mer" plays at the beginning and the end.
  • This trope is also applicable in a more roundabout, meta-oriented way: the Mr. Bean character was heavily influenced by French comedy character Monsieur Hulot since his conception, and this movie is a loose remake of the film where Hulot debuted.
• Brick Joke: After he causes Stephan to be separated from his father, Bean tries to amuse him with his antics, causing the kid to slap him across the face in annoyance. Later in the film the duo gets separated and when Stephan finds him again in the cafeteria he greets him by happily slapping him across the face again. And then he introduces Bean to the musicians that he hitchhiked a ride with. All of which proceed to greet him by slapping him across the face as well.
• Chekhov's Gun: The footage Bean keeps filming throughout the movie.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Or more like Gunwoman. In a 'blink and you'll miss it' moment, Sabine is filmed giving change to an accordion player in la Gare du Nord, right at the beginning. In fact, the scene is part of the video footage that Bean plays in lieu of Carson Clay's film.
  • The waiter that serves Bean's Foreign Queasine is one of the people Bean and Stepan accidentally call later on. (He appears to be eating a greasy burger.)
• Copiously Credited Creator: In-Universe, Carson Clay's film, is a Carson Clay Production of a Carson Clay film, starring... Carson Clay!
• Death Glare: Carson Clay gets off a great one when Mr. Bean steps between him and the paparazzi.
• Determinator: Nothing, not being saddled with a kid and kidnapping accusations, rampant hens, a maniac director filming a horrendously epic yoghurt commercial, having to drive through the night and dress as someone's grandmother will stop Bean from getting to that beach.
• Dinner Order Flub: When he decides to dine at the Le Train Bleu in the Gare de Lyon, Mr. Bean winds up ordering a langoustine (Norway lobster), which he doesn't eat. Of note is that the paltry amount of spending money that was part of the prize was barely enough for his meal, forcing him to complete his journey without being able to buy anything.
• Disguised in Drag: How Bean gets past the highway checkpoint after he is a wanted man.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: A more mundane case. All Bean wants to do is go to the beach at Cannes, France, but he had to go through a lot of stuff in order to do so. Though he's still without his wallet which had all his money and ID, so it's kind of hard to imagine what he can do to get back home.
• Facecam: One of the self-consciously arty touches that Carson Clay uses for his asinine Le Film Artistique.
• Foreign Queasine: Like the show, Bean evidently does not enjoy French cuisine.
• Grand Finale: In light of Rowan Atkinson's retiring of the character in 2012, with only sporadic reprisals and the revival of the animated series in the years since, this film marks the effective endpoint of Mr. Bean as a serialized media franchise.
• Humble Goal: Bean just wants to go to the beach.
• Intergenerational Friendship: The (clearly) middle-aged Bean and the pre-teen Stepan.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Mr. Bean. Like with the main series, it's moreso that he just does bad things because he doesn't know any better rather than genuine malice.
• Le Film Artistique: Carson Clay's ridiculous art film that Mr. Bean's friend Sabine has a part in.
• Lighter and Softer: Compared to the previous film, Bean, which added slightly more raunch to earn a more marketable PG-13 rating. This one has no such humor and is rated G.
• Match Cut: From a model train entering a tunnel to a real train leaving one.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • The moment Bean realises that the man whom he accidentally made miss the train has a young son on board, who is screaming for his father, he immediately tries to help.
  • Stepan steals Bean's camera and forces him to get off the train to retrieve it. As he does so, the train leaves without him. Stepan records and laughs at Bean as he tries to stop said train, but quickly regrets his actions.
• The Not-Love Interest: Sabine is the female lead, but she and Bean never quite hit it off.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bean twice, both involving him being on a train.
  • Bean also spills coffee on someone's laptop because he neglected to walk straight and didn't bother putting a lid on his coffee. He simply just pours the coffee out and the foam off the laptop then walks away before the guy wakes up.
  • Bean ends up separating a film director from his son on the train. Seeing that this is his fault, Bean does however try to fix his mistake and reunite the two.
• Prima Donna Director: Carson Clay. To elaborate, almost nobody in the theatre is interested in his overly monologuing movie as many can be seen falling asleep mid-way through. Even his own wife looks bored and sleepy while watching the movie. This might be mostly because it's not even given French subtitles.^note French subtitles are always given to non-French language films at the Cannes Film Festival.
  • Clay also displays ridiculous prima donna obnoxiousness when filming a yogurt commercial.
• Reality Has No Subtitles: Happens with Stepan the Russian kid and the short film. Anything that Mr. Bean can't understand is untranslated, but thankfully rather irrelevant to the story.
• Road Trip Plot: Bean traveling across France to Cannes, along the way making friends with an actress and getting mistaken for a kidnapper.
• Running Gag: Bean telling people "Gracias", thinking it's French.
• Series Continuity Error: In the TV episode "Mr. Bean in Room 426", Mr. Bean loves oysters and eats a bunch of them. In this movie an entire comic set piece revolves around him finding oysters disgusting.^{Possible Explaination}Bean wound up with terrible food poisoning after eating the Oysters previously, he may simply not want to go through that again.
• 6 Is 9: The winning raffle ticket is #919, but Bean misreads his as #616.
• Star-Making Role: In-universe for Sabine. Mr. Bean's meddling gets her a bigger role in Carson Clay's movie, and by the end she's a star.
• The Stinger: After the end credits, Mr. Bean records his feet writing the word 'FIN' in the sand. As he finishes, waves wash away his handiwork and the video camera battery dies out.
• Sudden Musical Ending: The last scene is Bean and the cast lip-syncing "La Mer" (which is "Beyond the Sea" with French lyrics).
• Tanks, but No Tanks: During the commercial scene, among the many props used for the shooting of said commercial include a replica of a German StuG III assault gun, apparently the same one that appeared in two episodes of Band of Brothers.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Mr. Bean, compared to the shorts and first film, where in this film, the worst thing he intentionally did is smiling menacingly at a security camera, causing misunderstanding by the authorities.
• Trauma Conga Line: Mr. Bean went through one that lasted for at least a third of the movie.
• Truer to the Text: Compared to its predecessor, this movie is significantly less Americanized and sees the titular character returning to his near-mute origins, thus playing out a lot more like an extended skit than a legitimate film adaptation.
• Vanity Project: Carson Clay Pictures Present Carson Clay in a Carson Clay Production of a Carson Clay Film: Playback Time. Which consists of long, drawn-out shots of Clay as a broken-hearted cop trying to go on with his life, accompanied by sad Background Music and his Inner Monologue. Mr Bean's friend Sabine, an aspiring actress, was hoping it would be her Star-Making Role, but Clay is so focused on himself that her scene was cut down to seven seconds, three of which are her walking away from the camera. Until Bean splices in footage of himself and Sabine on their journey to Cannes. This leads to Clay being praised for his unique artistic choices; he evidently decides to just go with it.
• Video Credits: Shots of the characters are placed on screen with their actors names, forming a collage.
• You Just Ruined the Shot: Mr. Bean does this twice in succession to Clay's WWII-themed commercial. First by wandering into the set, then, after being put as an extra, by carrying his camcorder while shooting.

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♫ La mer les a bercés
Le long des golfes clairs
Et d'une chanson d'amour
La mer a bercé mon cœur pour la vie... ♫

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