AllMovie

A man born and raised on France's Southern coast is exiled to the Northern territories in this comedy from actor, director and screenwriter Dany Boon. Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad) helps run the post office in a picturesque small town in the South of France, Salon de Provence. Philippe's wife Julie (Zoe Felix) has been down in the dumps, and he thinks one way to lift her spirits would be to relocate to the more glamorous surroundings of the Cote d'Azur. However, Philippe's attempts to finagle a transfer (by pretending that he is handicapped) fail, and when the ruse is discovered, he ends up being punished with a forced relocation to Bergues, a village in Northern France that lies stuck between Belgium and the English Channel. In this area, the indigenes speak a language known as Picard - an amalgam of French, Flemish and Latin - and Philippe essentially perceives the region as the "Siberia of France." With misery in his heart, he dons extreme winter clothing and trudges off to his new post, saying goodbye to Julie and their son, who opt to stay behind. To make matters worse, not long after arriving in Bergues, Philippe nearly runs over a man while driving home drunk -- who turns out to be one of his new colleagues at the post office, But Philippe eventually finds to his surprise that he enjoys life in Bergues, and begins to love the community and its people, even growing infatuated with Annabelle (Anne Marivin), a beautiful letter carrier.