Remarkably it's 26 years since Daniel Auteuil starred in the rural French classic Jean de Florette and its delightful sequel Manon des Sources. For his directorial debut, he returns to the warmth and charm of the French countryside.

Well-digger Pascal Amoretti may well be a simple man, but he still has his dignity. His life to date has had its fair share of ups and downs, having to raise his five daughters on his own since his wife's death.

One of his daughters, Patricia (Astrid Bergès-Frisbey), is on the cusp of womanhood with her 18th birthday imminent. She already has a suitor in the form of her father's employee Félipe (Kad Merad); Félipe has a heart of gold, but perhaps his age is against him as far as Patricia is concerned.

On the way to deliver her father his lunch, she gets stuck at a river that she needs to cross. Out of almost nowhere appears a handsome young man, who literally sweeps her off of her feet and carries her across. It's a romantic gesture that doesn't go unnoticed.

It transpires that he is Jacques (Nicolas Duvauchelle), son of the owner of the local store. Maybe it's the wealth that his family clearly have, or the fact that he's a daredevil pilot in the air force, but Jacques has a definite cockiness about him. So when he meets Patricia the following day, he turns the charm on all the way to onze.

It may well only be the second time that the couple come together, but Jacques leaves a lasting impression; the kind of impression that brings shame to a family. The situation is made worse when he's suddenly called to war, and Patricia has to deal with the fall-out all on her own.

Blimey, these on set loos are getting less and less glamorous.

Auteuil captures some of the gentility of his earlier work in the fields of France, but this lacks a certain something; perhaps the script isn't quite in the same league, or maybe it's the story, which, in this day and age, feels more like a French version of Lark Rise to Candleford. That's not a great slur, it's just that audiences can now get that feel-good rural chic pumped directly into their homes now, and this film doesn't bring another more substantial to the country table.

His direction is nothing more than adequate (although in fairness, nothing more than that is really required), but he still manages to shine on the acting stage. Elsewhere though, the majority of his cast give somewhat stilted performances. Any sign of really personality is left to Auteuil himself to provide, as well as Merad as the likeable Félipe.

Clearly the rural shoes of Claude Berri's Jean de Florette are hard to fill, but Auteuil's directorial debut still manages to entertain and delight, albeit on a smaller scale.