At the risk of over-hyping this French farce, Welcome to the Sticks is a contender for comedy of the year. It gets off to a slow start, however, with uncomfortable jokes that may offend the disabled, though this is an ensemble piece, and it's not until all the players are introduced that the belly laughs begin.

Philippe Abrams (Kad Merad) is a post office manager trying to cheat his way into a transfer to The French Riviera by pretending to be disabled. When he's caught faking a disability, he's "sentenced" to a job in the northern town of Bergues - a terrifying prospect to southern snob Philippe, who thinks that the north is a freezing backwater swarming with beer-guzzling buffoons who speak an impenetrable dialect. Leaving his wife (Zoe Felix) and son in the sunny south, Philippe arrives in Bergues to be greeted by the loveable Antoine, played by the director, comedian Dany Boon. Antoine (whose mail rounds are akin to a pub crawl) and his co-workers defy Philippe's expectations, charming him with their warmth. Events reach a comic crescendo when Philippe's wife comes to visit.

At the heart of this film is Philippe and Antoine's evolving friendship, but there's also a lovely (and occasionally cheesy) romantic subplot, and moments of scenic and sonic beauty when Antoine, the town's carillonneur, plays the bells. Although the fish-out-of-water theme is universal, much of the humour is based on the quirks of the French Ch'timi dialect, of which Boon himself is a native speaker. But the jokes survive translation, largely because the dialect is so distinctive. Welcome to the Sticks is already a French box office smash, and Will Smith has nabbed the US rights. See it before Hollywood gets hold of it.