COCKLES & MUSCLES
aka COTE D'AZUR
aka CRUSTACeS ET COQUILLAGES

Year: 2005
USA: Strand Releasing
UK: Parasol Peccadillo Releasing
Cast: Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Gilbert Melki, Jean-Marc Barr, Jacques Bonnaffe, edouard Collin, Romain Torres, Sabrina Seyvecou, Yannick Baudin, Julien Weber, Sebastien Cormier, Marion Roux
Directors: Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau
Country: France
Language: French (English subtitles)
USA: 90 mins
UK: 95 mins
UK Certificate: 15 contains strong language, moderate drug use and sex
USA Release Date: 9 September 2005 (Limited Release)
UK Release Date: 14 April 2006
US Distributor
(in French)

Synopsis

Co-writers and directors Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau previously co-directed MA VIE (MA VRAI VIE A ROUEN) and DROLE de FeLIX. Their feel-good comedy of sexual manners, the French hit COCKLES & MUSCLES was joint winner of the Europa Cinemas Label award for European film in the Panorama at the Berlin Film Festival 2005.

Marc (Gilbert Melki) and Beatrix (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) and their teenage children are to spend summer at the seaside house of Marc's youth. The summer heat soon kindles the senses as young love erupts, old flames fire up and sexual adventures ensue... the holiday is set to be anything but tranquil!

Their daughter Laura (Sabrina Seyvecou), 19, takes off with her biker boyfriend, while their son Charly (Romain Torres), 17, finds he is the object of his best friend, Martin's (edouard Collin) desire. Beatrix, sensing tension between the boys, suspects they may be lovers, an assumption Charly chooses not to deny. While the free-spirited Beatrix encourages tolerance, her husband Marc struggles to accept his children's sexual awakening and maintain a sense of propriety. Things get steamier when Beatrix's lover Mathieu (Jacques Bonnaffe) shows up and Marc's first love reappears out of the blue and the secrets, revelations and misunderstandings build to a crescendo.

COCKLES & MUSCLES is a modern fairy tale that culminates in a number of blissful 'unions' and a song. Yet it is also a tale in which there are no 'bad guys' except the rules that say 'no'; and the taboos and repression that each of us carry inside, which prevent the expression of our innermost desires."
- Olivier Ducastel, Jacques Martineau