PIERRE AND THE CHALLENGE

The daily life of a ten-year-old Parisian is the rationale for a thin strand of plot--Pierre must learn to take responsibility for his studies and for other people like his little sister Mireille. We see him doing homework, getting kept after school, dining with grandparents, going to a wedding, riding the metro; he earns his father's respect (having understood tradition by looking into an excavation) and gets a dog (after it rescues Mireille). Obvious writing overloaded with adjectives and short-changed on subtlety tells the barely existent story.