It all starts when the mother (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) reads too much into how excited her son Charly (Romain Torres) seems to be that his best friend Martin (Edouard Collin) will be joining them at their beach house. In her overactive imagination, the fact that Charly and Martin requested separate rooms can only mean one thing: Her son is trying to hide the fact that he's gay.

Proud of her discovery, Béatrix shares the news with her husband, Marc (Gilbert Melki), who isn't quite so comfortable with the idea of his only son being gay (''But Charly plays soccer!'' he stammers). Charly, meanwhile, doesn't know what to think. Martin's cute, and they've dabbled in the locker room after soccer matches, but at his age, all those hormones can be misleading, and he hasn't really had the chance to experiment with the opposite sex . . . although he thinks about it plenty during those long, hot showers he's always taking.

Things sure can get confusing for a 21st century teenager. Now that parents and the public have become (relatively) better informed on the subject of homosexuality, young people are inevitably adding sexual identity issues to their already overlong list of adolescent insecurities. Charly doesn't really have enough experience to consider himself gay or straight, but ready or not, he's going to have to make up his mind by the end of this summer vacation.

As flippant vaudeville-style comedies go, Cote d'Azur is rather weak. There's more sex going on under the roof of the Biancheri family's summer home than most brothels see in a month, and it's rather exhausting keeping up with which characters have their hands in the cookie jar at the same time. However, as an example of contemporary gay cinema, the movie offers considerably more crossover appeal than other films of its kind, not to mention an unusually insightful look at how homosexuality's heightened profile can confuse parents, friends and young people alike.

I suspect that Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, who co-wrote and -directed Cote d'Azur, must be great admirers of François Ozon. Of all the filmmakers working in France today, Ozon is far and away the most fascinating. In two early shorts (See the Sea and A Summer Dress), Ozon milked the sexual tension of his seaside locale to maximum effect, while in Sitcom, he tackled similarly dysfunctional coming-out issues with John Waters-worthy irreverence.

Cote d'Azur makes for a rather unbalanced homage, stealing bits and pieces from Ozon's entire oeuvre, right down to the 8 Women-like musical number that caps the film. But Ducastel and Martineau lack not only Ozon's gift for complex psychology, but also the visual flair that would make this sexual farce really come alive.

[as featured in The Miami Herald]