Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 10 (mild comedic violence). Recommended for confident readers, or French speaking children as film is subtitled.
This topic contains:
Children under 5 | Not suitable due to mild comedic violence. |
Children aged 5–10 | Parental guidance recommended due to mild comedic violence and mild themes. Also, for highly proficient readers or French speaking children. |
Children over the age of 10 | Ok for this age group. Non-French speaking children must be fast-paced, confident readers. |
This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.
Name of movie: | Little Nicholas (Le Petit Nicolas) |
Classification: | PG |
Consumer advice lines: | Mild comedic violence. |
Length: | 88 minutes |
This review of the movie contains the following information:
A French children’s film set in France in the 1950s. Nicholas lives with his Mother and Father and attends a boys’ school where he has a gang of good friends, all who are different in their own special way. Nicholas’ friend comes to school one day very upset about his mother bringing home a baby brother from the hospital. Nicholas starts to worry that maybe his parents are planning on having a baby too, and somehow this idea grows and grows until Nicholas is convinced that not only is a new baby on the way but that his parents are going to abandon him in the woods to make way for the new arrival! Nicholas decides that he must take matters into his own hands and find a way to ‘deal’ with the baby when it arrives. His school friends rally around and together they think up a series of hilarious and mischievous schemes that don’t quite go to plan!
Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.
Comedy; 1950s Nostalgia; Getting into scrapes and mischief; Birth of a new sibling; School-yard politics; Gambling.
Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.
Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.
There is some violence in this movie including:
Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:
Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.
In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:
Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.
The following products are displayed or used in this movie:
There are some mild romantic and sexual references in this movie, including:
There is some use of substances in this movie, including:
There is some coarse language in this movie, including:
Little Nicholas is a light and fluffy film adaptation of the 1950’s children’s books series Le Petit Nicolas by French writer Rene Goscinny (who wrote the Asterix comic books). The film is picture-perfect and pretty with some gentle laughs and cheeky misadventures to make everyone smile. An easy family film but the English subtitles are quite fast paced so readers will have to be quite proficient to pick up all of the dialogue. For this reason, it’s best suited to children aged ten or over who are confident readers.
The main messages from this movie are that welcoming a new baby into the family can be challenging but it’s also very rewarding; and that sometimes children misunderstand the intentions of adults.
Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:
This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:
Tip: Leave out the first A, An or The
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Content is age appropriate for children this age
Some content may not be appropriate for children this age. Parental guidance recommended
Content is not age appropriate for children this age
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ABN: 16 005 214 531