Anatomy of a Scene: Rowan Atkinson goes for a bike ride, ‘Mr Bean’s Holiday’
One of the most shamefully underrated films of the 2000s, Mr Bean’s Holiday starring Rowan Atkinson captures the joy of summertime like nothing else. Irreverant, sun-dappled and immediately relatable to anyone longing to escape the endless drizzle of a British summer, the 2007 comedy caper is at once satirical, tender and utterly timeless. Here we’ll be looking at one of its most memorable scenes, the moment Bean goes for a rather speedy bike ride through rural France. Along the way, we’ll attempt to establish what makes the scene so effective.
But before we get into it, let’s look at the action so far. After winning a trip to France at a church raffle, the immortal Monsuier Bean packs his bags and heads off to St Pancras Station to board a Eurostar train bound for the opulent coastal town of Cannes, where the annual film festival is set to take place. However, after unwittingly separating a young boy called Stepan (played by a young Maxim Baldry) from his father, Bean finds himself not only stranded but responsible for reuniting the family members.
After being ejected from the next train, Stepan and Bean, who is now without his wallet, passport and train ticket, decide to get to Cannes by busking for petty cash and hitchhiking. After earning enough money to buy himself and Stepan bus tickets to Cannes, Bean’s ticket gets picked up by the wind and attached to the foot of a chicken, which is subsequently loaded into a French farmer’s lorry. Bean grabs a rickety bike filled with vegetables and sets off in hot pursuit of the vehicle.
What follows is one of the film’s most joyous sequences, largely because it features all the hallmarks of what makes Bean such an enduring and memorable character. Much like Forrest Gump, Mr Bean might appear dim, but he’s actually highly determined and knows how to make the best of a bad situation. Initially, it seems Bean is doomed to wander the sun-parched French countryside until he eventually dies of heat exhaustion. However, he soon happens upon a flash sports car driven by someone clearly rather wealthy, which he uses to give himself a much-needed boost of speed.
This not only allows Curtis to move Bean closer to his end goal; it also helps highlight one of the film’s recurring themes: that it’s the journey, not the destination, which really matters – something the wealthy characters seem to have forgotten. It also gives birth to one of the best visual gags in the whole film, in which Bean, completely unaware of how fast he’s going, zooms past a squad of lycra-clad cyclists in the Tour de France. Atkinson’s performance really heightens the joke, with Bean admiring the scenery around him as though he’s on a pleasant ride to the local boulangerie.
The whole thing is given an extra dose of energy by Matt Willis’ cover of ‘Crash’, originally written by The Primitives, which is not only highly appropriate given the subject of the scene but also perfectly suited to Bean’s carefree mood. By this point, Mr Bean and Stepan have been separated. This moment would mark a loss of hope for the characters in any other film. And yet, Bean remains as optimistic as ever, zooming along with the smile of someone immersed in the pure experience of travel. Bean doesn’t know if he’ll ever make it to Cannes, but he’s sure as hell going to enjoy trying. He’s just along for the ride.
