Offscreen, the outhouse is smashed to bits by a passing truck. Locked inside, Bean rips an outhouse off its foundation and waddles across a country road while encased in the wooden structure. And when the boy enthusiastically introduces Bean to a traveling rock band, each of its members greet Bean with a hearty cheek smack. Once Stepan and Bean are on better terms, the slap becomes a kind of standard greeting. Shortly after Stepan’s father misses the train, the boy angrily slaps Bean across the face. Bean is never sensible, but his heart is usually in the right place. OK, so an adult would ask, “Why doesn’t he just pull over and get some sleep?” That would, indeed, be the sensible thing to do. And when he and the boy link up with a pretty French actress-driving a car coyly similar to Bean’s own multi-colored, ’77 Leyland Mini-Bean sacrificially burns his finger and props his eyelids open with matchsticks to keep from falling asleep while driving. And he methodically dials down the list during the duration of the film.īean performs bizarre lip-synched musical numbers in a French market to raise money to continue their trip. Bean tries to help Stepan use a pay phone to reach his dad, charting out a long list of numbers that could belong to the director’s cell phone.
Stepan doesn’t want to have anything to do with Bean at first, but when he tricks Bean into missing the train himself, they join forces. He tries to befriend the boy and shoos away a dirty-looking man who walks toward Stepan at a stop. Along the way, Bean gets locked in an outhouse, plays air guitar, sticks matches in his eyes, ruins a yogurt commercial and (perhaps) finds true love.īean is a “role model” in the same way a 5-year-old might be: He is precocious, selfish and mischievous-but he also can be sweet and has moments in which he teaches those around him something about the simple joys of life and friendship.īean feels terrible that he made Stepan’s father miss the train. What follows is, essentially, the story of a boy and his Bean as they take an outlandish journey to Cannes-the lad to be reunited with his father, Bean to claim his long-awaited holiday. Bean gleefully films the unfortunate director running down the platform … until he realizes the director’s young boy, Stepan, is now onboard by himself. Bean demands several retakes and, in so doing, causes the director to miss the train. “I think he’s English.”īean goes too far, though, when he asks a fellow passenger-who turns out to be a famous Russian film director-to shoot video of him boarding the train. Should we do something? Asks one French police officer watching the chaos via video.
He creates a traffic nightmare by marching through busy intersections, oblivious to the cars screeching to a halt all around him. He dumps a bevy of slimy oysters into a woman’s handbag. He spills cappuccino on the laptop of a sleeping businessman. And it doesn’t take long for the awkward Englishman to start wreaking havoc. “You speak very good French,” says a server on the train, after hearing Bean say “oui” and “non.” “Gracias,” Bean answers.īut Bean attracts trouble like milk attracts cats.
So it’s off to Paris and then to Cannes, with his small travel case and shiny new video camera. No matter the reason, Bean is thrilled when he wins a trip to the French Riviera by entering a church raffle. Perhaps he’s spent too much time in a cubicle, staring at a computer screen, writing … movie reviews. Perhaps it’s overwork that causes Bean-a childlike, inept Londoner who wears a too-small tweed suit and a thin red tie-to act the way he does. If anyone could use a vacation, it’d be Mr.
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