Price of Parenting (original title Mes très chers enfants) is a 2021 French comedy film directed by Alexandra Leclère.
The film tells the story of the Blanc family. Chantal (Josiane Balasko) and Christian (Didier Bourdon) have two adult children, Sandrine (Marilou Berry) and Stéphane (Ben), that are first seen leaving their parents' home to go live in Paris by themselves. Over the course of ten years, opportunities for the family to be together become more and more scarce, with Sandrine and Stéphane constantly making up excuses and failing to fulfill their promises of seeing their parents more often. When the two siblings tell their parents that they aren't spending Christmas with them, Chantal and Christian devise an elaborate prank to give their kids an incentive to come see them more often: they tell them that they have won 18 million euros in the lottery. Hilarity ensues when Sandrine and Stéphane get the idea that this will benefit them too, and as time goes on, more people try to take advantage of a large sum of money Chantal and Christian never won.
Mes Très Chers Enfants provides examples of the following tropes:
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with Stéphane. While playing golf with his father and Mr. Castignac, Christian accidentally hits his face with a golf club and Stéphane loses some teeth as a result. Even after his teeth are fixed, the bruises he gets take a while to disappear.
- Bookends: Sort of. The film's main plot is kickstarted by Sandrine and Stéphane both telling their parents they won't be able to make it to spend Christmas with their parents. In the end, Chantal and Christian win one million euros for real, and feeling that their kids became better people after learning the truth about the fake 18 million euros prize, they decide to spend it with themselves and tell their children they won't be able to make it to spend Christmas with them to get a treatment at a hot spring... when they actually booked a holiday at a tropical beach.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Christian often calls Ms. Clutaine "Ms. Gluten", much to the latter's annoyance.
- Entitled Bastard: Sandrine and Stéphane are this, before their much needed Character Development. They neglect their relationship with their parents, constantly make up excuses to not see them, fail to fulfill their promises and overall take them for granted. Yet they fully expect Chantal and Christian to split the prize money they supposedly won with them.
- Innocently Insensitive: Stéphane's annoyance at his parents' calls and his disregard for everything they do for him saddens Valérie, that lost her parents at some point before the events of the film, a loss that still weights on her.
- Irony: After coming up with the lie about winning 18 million euros and all the chaos that ensued in their children's lives and their own, Christian actually wins one million euros in a scratchcard.
- I Want Grandkids: Chantal frequently asks Sandrine about grandchildren when she is over, much to Sandrine's annoyance. During the time skip at the end of the film, Sandrine gets pregnant and has a child with Régis.
- Missed Him by That Much: At the end of the film, after feeling annoyed at Christian calling her "Ms. Gluten" again, Ms. Clutaine goes away and leaves behind a scratchcard with the last star symbol still unscratched. Christian scratches it and it turns out that the scratchcard had a one million euros prize.
- Nonconformist Dyed Hair: Sandrine, in her twenties.
- Not So Above It All: When Sandrine has no money to pay for the expensive hotel she stayed in after leaving Régis, she offers the hotel receptionist her Chanel purse as payment. The receptionist just grabs the purse (after some resistance from Sandrine) and tells her to go away.
- Obliquely Obfuscated Occupation: It's never really left clear what Stéphane's job is or what the company he works for does.
- Purple Is Powerful: When Chantal and Christian are pretending to be millionaires, they often wear purple clothing.
- Ship Tease: Stéphane and Valérie occasionally get some romantic moments together, and they become a couple during the last time skip.
- Speech Impediment: Stéphane gets a temporary one after he has to have his teeth fixed after his father hit his face with a golf club.
