Little Nicholas (), also known as Petit Nicolas (UK), is a 2009 French-Belgian family comedy film directed by Laurent Tirard, who co-wrote with Grégoire Vigneron and Alain Chabat. It is based on a series of children's books by René Goscinny and Jean-Jacques Sempé. The film features an ensemble cast led by Maxime Godart in the title role of Nicolas. The film was theatrically released in France on 30 September 2009 by Wild Bunch Distribution, Central Film, and EOne Films.
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics and earned $100.8 million on a $22.7 million budget. It won the French Television of Ontario (TFO) Prize for Best Youth Film at the Cinéfranco in 2010 and also received nominations for the César Award for Best Writing – Adaptation, the European Film Award for People's Choice Award for Best European Film, and the Cinema Brazil Grand Prize for Best Foreign-Language Film. A sequel, Nicholas on Holiday, was released on 9 July 2014.
Synopsis
In 1950s Paris, a young boy named Nicolas and his friends get into all sorts of mischief, both intentional and unintentional. Matters worsen when Nicolas, a single child, thinks his mother is pregnant and a baby brother is forthcoming. A friend of Nicolas's has a baby brother and thinks brotherhood is horrible. Thanks to his friend's ideas, Nicolas believes this means his parents do not love him anymore and will abandon him. He and his pals embark on several schemes to raise 500 francs to have the baby kidnapped and left in a jungle.
Plot
Nicholas and his group of classmates are instructed by their teacher to write about what they want to be when they grow up. His classmates, gluttonous best friend Alceste, rich boy Geoffrey, dimwitted Clotaire, surly and quarrelsome Eudes, eccentric Rufus, and gossipy top student Agnan, already have plans for the future, but Nicholas himself is unsure as he enjoys his life and he doesn’t want it to change.
One day, the class is interrupted by the arrival of another student, Joachim, who has a new baby brother and he is not pleased at all because no one ever prioritizes him. Joachim explains to Nicholas that he wasn't aware of the arrival, but he did observe his father's uncharacteriscally affective behavior to his mother. The next morning, Nicholas sees that his parents are affectionate to each other, causing him to suspect that they are planning to have a baby. He informs his friends about this, but they also grow suspicious about Joachim's sudden absence from the school.
After he returns home, Nicholas overhears half of a conversation his parents are having about inviting Mr. Moucheboume, Nicholas' father's hard-to-please boss, and his wife over for dinner, mistakenly assuming that it is about the new baby's arrival. When his father suggests a weekend escapade to the woods, Nicholas thinks this is a ploy to abandon him for his baby brother. For the next few days, Nicholas becomes determined to please his mother in everything, even attending a tea party with her friends, where he spends quality of time playing with a girl named Marie-Edwige and her girlfriends. Nonetheless, Nicholas' parents still take him to the woods and he refuses to come out, forcing them to push the car back home when they are unable to persuade him otherwise and spend the rest of the day arguing.
Nicholas' friends vow to protect him by forming a secret club. They try to clean up the house while his parents are away. However, their attempt results in failure, the house becomes a mess, and Nicholas gets grounded for the night. Losing all hope, Nicholas decides to run away from home, but he regrets it and returns. Later on, they decide to hire a gangster who can assist them in kidnapping the child. They learn that Blind Jack is on the loose, but Nicholas instead calls someone working in a garage, who charges 500 francs to strip the "body" down.