I was looking forward to watching l'auberge espagnole since one of my favorite language YouTubers recommended it as a learning device. I don't know what they drank when they watched this because this movie should not be praised. I think its possible to root for a protagonist who is not perfect. We have Heisenberg, we have Tony Soprano. But this guy comes off to seemingly everyone as perfect when he is really a sexist, hypocrital pig who doesn't get his comeuppance. I don't care how relatable this may be to the traveling foreigner. I'm just thinking why did they portray this guy so badly. He tells his mother to shut up, convinces a married woman to have an affair, and got mad when his girlfriend says she has moved on. He disgusts me and it disgusts me that this movie is revered. It makes me question if this is normal behaviour for people in France. Never has a film made me feel such disgust for a character. What makes it worse is that people like this movie, they relate to it. I'm sorry but I cannot relate to an awful human being. All they had to do was make him likable, that's all.

This is a friendly, quite fun film that explores European identity and young people getting along - or at least trying to. I'm writing this is as an older person who was never been a student, but was that age, once.Xavier (Romain Duras), a Parisian who wants to study Economics, goes on an exchange programme to Barcelona and the film charts his successes - and failures - along the way. There's everything from change of language, that Catalan is spoken instead of Spanish at his University and of, course, finding accommodation - that scourge of all students.When he does finally find somewhere, it's already populated by an assortment of students each from a different country (I think!), including an English girl from London, Kelly Reilly, who happens to end up doing most of the housework. This naturally conjures up the expected sort of mischiefs and misunderstandings, humorous rather than hilarious, more real life than made up comedy. It's during these nicely scatty and warm interludes when the film shines brightest.Some have accused the individual relationships of both Xavier and Wendy (Reilly) of weakening the strength of the story, but I disagree. They add to the movie's 2 hour length, admittedly and as since both play away from home, so to speak, there's some twists and turns. I enjoyed Xavier's more, partly because his French girlfriend that he leaves behind is the amazingly gorgeous Audrey Tatou (a great excuse to watch the film) and the girl he gets to know intimately, from when she suffers a dizzy spell high up on the Church of Sagrada Familia, the equally lovely Cecile de France, who happens to be married to a neurosurgeon.Many parts are akin to a backpacker's guide, with lots of street scenes and stuff, which are nice to look at, of course. Comedy (sort of) comes when Wendy's brother, wide-boy and bit of a t*sser, William, played by Kevin Bishop, visits for a while. He's cringe-worthingly crass and rather stupid, "accidentally" makes racist remarks and is a certain embarrassment to his sister, who has to literally carry him home after a mega-binge. He pukes to the other's chorus, with guitar, of 'No Woman, No Cry' in the Square, at dawn. So he lived up to our country's unsavoury reputation, at least!After quite a few other things going on, including Wendy's English boyfriend dropping in unexpectedly, whilst Wendy is fooling around with her American lover, the whole lot dissembles much in the same way as it formed, but in reverse. People said their impassioned goodbyes and we then see Xavier back in Paris, starting work.Pot Luck will appeal to all who not only enjoy European travel, Barcelona, of course but also any film that champions human friendships and relationships and one that isn't too heavy. You could watch it on a miserable day and it'd cheer you up and likewise, on a sunny one, as it would seem fitting and even more enjoyable.

The film is about a group of almost exclusively Western Europeans all living together in Barcelona in order to save money. The apartment is just jam-packed with these students. The story centers on a French student, Xavier, but also shows what's happening in the lives of several of his roommates (though a few are just there--with little insight into them or what makes them tick). An interesting idea, but it might have been improved by the addition of more nationalities--especially non-Western Europeans. I applaud the film makers for doing something different. Here they have created a truly multinational movie--with many, many different languages. So, it's one of the few films that will require you to read subtitles no matter where you are from--though I suppose somewhere there is one person who actually understands Danish, Italian, French, German, English, Spanish and perhaps another couple languages.Now this does not mean I loved the film? I liked parts of it, but the film suffered from a few plot problems--at least for me. Two things about the film bothered me but I am sure not everyone will be as turned off by them as much as me. First, any film that shows someone vomiting has to lose a point or two. If you are have a character retching, that's fine--but to show it repeatedly in all its glory is just nasty. I don't like watching vomit come shooting out a person's mouth--just call me weird about that! Secondly, while this problem is not always serious (it depends on the type of film), I have a hard time with a film where the main character is unlikable. This doesn't mean they need to be perfect, but having Xavier be such a jerk was a major turn off for me. He has a lovely fiancée but sleeps with a married woman...not exactly an endearing behavior. Several others also have equally discerning taste or help their roommates cheat on their significant others--making many in this flat seem like jerks. Though I must admit that the acting and direction were still good.Finally, a word about the DVD and poster art as well as the casting. Although Audrey Tautou is featured prominently and receives billing near the top of the film, her part was actually quite small. But, with the success of "Amélie", the film makers decided to try to exploit her small part and fool the public. I hate film marketing people--because that's exactly why I watched the film in the first place! It is clearly NOT a starring vehicle for her and if you expect that, you'll be sorely disappointed, like I was.

"When you first arrive in a new city, nothing makes sense. Everything's unknown, virgin... After you've lived here, walked these streets, you'll know them inside out. You'll know these people. Once you've lived here, crossed this street 10, 20, 1000 times... it'll belong to you because you've lived there. That was about to happen to me, but I didn't know it yet."The quote is when I decided that I'm going to love this movie, 10/10 kind of love. The premise looked really interesting and promising, I already liked the way the movie was made (camera work etc.), and quotes like that are gems that I love to find and that I don't find often. It felt very refreshing and quite original too - maybe someone has, but I haven't seen many movies with similar premise and everything, if any.I wish the whole movie could be like its first 15 or even 30 minutes (I don't look at the clock when a movie is that good, so I don't know when exactly it went all wrong). In fact I'd love to see a movie that would follow this movie's premise and first scenes.Sadly, it soon becomes a movie about mostly everyone sleeping with everyone (which, most of the time, is also everyone cheating on everyone), getting drunk/high and having no real goal in life. It gets so shallow that it becomes almost unwatchable and the main character, so promising at first, becomes the most despicable of them all. I wish I could give it a 10/10 for the beginning and 0/10 for the rest, but 2/10 has to do - there's no 0/10, so 1/10 is for everything else, and the good part gets one point.