Tanguy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.
How do you get your grown kid to move the hell out?

Tanguy is a French comedy directed by Etienne Chatilliez and released in 2000. The title character is a 28-year-old man who lives with his parents and has no desire whatsoever to spread his wings and move out. The only child of a Parisian bobo family, he's smart but selfish, and women, especially Asian ones, somehow find him irresistible.

His parents, whose patience is running out, decide to get him to leave by making his life hell. He eventually gets the message and moves out... to China, where live-at-home grown children are considered perfectly normal.


Tropes used in Tanguy include:


  • Basement Dweller: Actually, Tanguy has a fair amount of his parents' high-end apartment reserved for his own uses.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: When Tanguy was born, his mother was so enamoured with the cuteness of her baby that she told him "If you want to, you can stay at home forever". 20-something years later...
  • Bourgeois Bohemian: Tanguy's parents.
  • The Cameo: TV producer Philippe Gildas and singer Eddie Mitchell briefly show up as themselves.
  • The Casanova: Tanguy, despite his nerdy looks, is quite the womaniser and can sweet-talk his way into any girl's pants.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Tanguy remains blissfully unaware of how much of a pain he is.
  • Computer Virus: His father asks someone at his company's systems department to send a virus into Tanguy's computer. Said virus manifests as the words "I Love You!" and a stylized human skull appearing on the computer screen, and then all the font suddenly falling down as if pulled by gravity.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Tanguy's grandmother.
  • Flyaway Shot: The final shot over the Forbidden City.
  • Geek Physiques: Tanguy, despite a comparatively healthy lifestyle (for a geek) nonetheless has a telltale skinny frame and pale skin.
  • Grandma, What Massive Hotness You Have!: One of his college students has a one-night stand with Tanguy's mother, and later boasts about it to his classmates. "I can tell you she's pretty good for her age!"
  • Laser-Guided Karma: The ending hints at the fact that Tanguy's own son will be just as reluctant to leave his parents as Tanguy himself.
  • Meddling Parents: Subverted. The parents wish they could not meddle in their son's life, but his reluctance to move out leaves them no choice.
  • Me Love You Long Time: Tanguy speaks fluent Chinese and Japanese, and uses his language skills to seduce Asian women.
  • Multigenerational Household: Tanguy's in-laws at the end of the movie have three generations going on four under one roof.
  • Nerds Are Sexy: See above.
  • The Seventies: Tanguy was born in the era of bell-bottom pants and ugly designer furniture, as the interior decoration of his young parents' apartment amply testifies.