Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, the creators of everyone's favorite AIDS-themed musical, Jeanne and the Perfect Guy, are back with the decidedly non-musical The Adventures of Felix, the tale of a young, gay Arab traveling from Normandy to Marseilles to meet the father he never knew.  It's a typical arthouse road-trip flick, in that nothing exciting happens and, despite his fear of being beaten because of his race and sexual preference, everyone Felix meets is nice, helpful and unbelievably tolerant.  While that's the kind of thing you'd like to see in everyday society, it doesn't make for a very thrilling motion picture.

Felix (Sami Bouajila) has just been laid off as the film opens.  He has also come across some letters written by his father to his recently deceased mother.  The return address is from Marseilles, so Felix decides to track down his dad, intending to hitchhike the back roads the entire five-day trip (culminating on Father's Day, no less), at which point he will meet his live-in boyfriend, Fabian Barthez-wannabe Daniel (Pierre-Loup Rajot), for a vacation.  He doesn't pack much, but does take a subtle rainbow-colored kite.

Felix meets a different traveler every day (and every 20 minutes in film-time - you can set your watch to it), and each becomes somewhat of a temporary family member to him.  The different segments have titles like "My Little Brother" and "My Grandmother," so that you can tell who is playing which role.  The titles are a help when Felix has sex with the person we're told is his "Cousin."  I mean, it could be a second cousin, right?  There's nothing wrong with that.

While each of the travelers helps Felix in his journey to Marseilles, they also use him for something as well, whether it's moving furniture or babysitting.  And every morning, no matter who he wakes up next to, Felix flicks on the television to watch his favorite soap opera while he downs his daily cocktail of AIDS-fighting drugs.  And then the closing credits rolled and I went home.

1:35 –

but contains nudity and adult language