Thomas, an illustrator based in Paris, goes to a trade show in Eastern France. He has not been active in a while. His only fan, at the booth he is manning, wants to know whatever happened to the series that made him popular. Thomas, must concede he has not created anything in a while. On his way home, he takes the train going in the wrong direction, landing in the small town where he was born.

The small town has seen better days. Thomas ambles through the deserted place on his way to the cemetery to visit his mother's grave. A wave of memories, gets the best of Thomas, making him faint. When he wakes up, he is back as a teenager. We follow him around in his original surroundings.

The town is seen in the 1960s when life was easier. His parents are middle class people with no social pretensions. His father, Bruno, a tailor, is not a happy man. He had married his wife, Anne, on the rebound. Thomas discovers another side of his father he never knew existed. Following him, he realizes Bruno had been in love with a woman who is now in the hospital with what appears to be a terminal disease. It will not take long before Bruno will desert the family.

"Quartier lointain" directed by Sam Garbarski, is based on a Japanese manga. The adaptation is by the director and Philippe Blasband and Jerome Tonnerre. The idea of going back in time is not exactly new, and it has been done better before. This is an unpretentious film that takes the viewer back to a previous era where the actual Thomas, is seen as a young man and his world at that moment. It is a nostalgic look at a situation that will mark Thomas for the rest of his life.

Pacal Greggory plays the older Thomas, although he has little to do in the film. His presence was more like an after thought. His young self is the center of the story. Jonathan Zaccai has some good moments as the younger man at a crucial moment of his young self. The supporting cast does an excellent job for director Garbarski. The beautiful area around Nantes is photographed in vivid colors by Jeanne Lapoirie.

Quartier Lointain (or A Distant Neighborhood for the English title) is an enjoyable movie to watch. Not really a comedy if you ask me, more a drama with a pinch of fantasy. The story is slow paced, a bit too slow to be honest, with not much going on, but still the viewer is drawn into the story. A story that makes you wonder where it goes, not fully explained but that didn't really matter in the end. The cast are all unknown to me but overal they did a good job enough to keep me interested. Worth a watch if you don't expect too much action, just an interesting story.

I'm not nine years old, so I don't read manga.

The story has been done about a million times, both forward and backwards. This variation has a sweet French touch to it with a little bit of French adolescent sexiness thrown it for good measure. It's like a French version of the movie Big, but with an existential twist. Unfortunately, it isn't quite as entertaining as that Hollywood take on age reversal.

More than anything, Quartier Lointain is a skip down memory lane in a French village in a simpler time. I think that modern Europeans believe those times still exist which is why so many have a second home in their native villages. Things haven't changes so much, as least in some places.

What drew me to this movie was just how bright and handsome everything appears, from the characters, to the geography, to the village, to the interiors. Who wouldn't want to live in this almost perfect world? Even the darn dog is perfect. His little girlfriend is a heartbreaker, even at fourteen. Younger siblings are mostly a pain in the neck, but his sister is sweeter than anything in a pâtisserie.

Since they really didn't go anywhere with the childhood romance angle, I would have preferred they used this film time to explore the adult character's life.