The artist-sculptor Nadira, the restorer Josée or the orthopedagogue Geneviève? Which of the women in her life would forgive Marc-Alexandre and take him home to (finally) live happily and have many (other) children?
Posted at 8:15 a.m.
None of the three, we discovered on Tuesday evening in the eighth and final episode of the intriguing miniseries The man who loved too muchsigned by Anne Boyer and Michel d’Astous for Noovo.
For latecomers to the small screen, the whistleblower alert here sounds like one of the two cell phones of traveling salesman Marc-Alexandre (Patrice Godin), but which one?
Okay that’s good. The man who loved too much ended in a bloodbath, which Nostradumas, however an old timer, had not seen coming. Rejected and humiliated, new mother Nadira (Nadia Kounda) followed Marc-Alexandre to Montreal and shot him dead in the middle of the street. In front of his two other families, gathered for the birthday of Sophie (Romy Bouchard).
For Nadira, abandonment was unforgivable, it was intolerable. We were planning this from the start and we even showed his brother’s gun [Reda Guerinik] in the second episode.
Michel d’Astous, screenwriter of The man who loved too much
Without his antihero, you will understand that The man who loved too much will not have a second season. It is well and truly over. Initially, this psychological thriller, which I liked, had been imagined as a closed work, with no possibility of a sequel. Except that in the middle of filming, the two authors strongly considered no longer liquidating their central character to continue the exploration of polyamory in a second chapter.
“The ending should have been changed, of course. But we would have liked that, to see how the polyamory of Marc-Alexandre would be lived, if everyone embarked. What would that have given? asks Michel d’Astous.
The idea was abandoned, in particular for lack of time to lay eight new episodes, and the initial end remained in the scenario, which sealed the fate of all the protagonists. Marc-Alexandre’s first wife, the elegant Josée (Hélène Florent), slept one last time with her ex to free herself from it. This scene of reclaiming power in a relationship was powerful.
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, THE PRESS
Screenwriter Michel d’Astous
In Magog, after shedding all the tears in her body, Geneviève (Fanny Mallette) also understood that the bond of trust with Marc-Alexandre would never be restored. And she made peace with it.
Seen by 562,000 people on Tuesday evenings, The man who loved too muchwhich explores the triple life of a man who would not immediately be described as an asshole, was difficult to write and sell to the Noovo chain, recalls Michel d’Astous.
You shouldn’t be preachy. Nor should the behavior of Marc-Alexandre be excused. When we explained the subject of the series, we always seemed to be defending Marc-Alexandre, to justify his actions. It was hard to make this antihero believable, without declawing him too much.
Michel d’Astous, screenwriter
Initially, the tone of The man who loved too much was lighter. The hiring of director Yves Christian Fournier (Tomorrow of men, bluemoon) changed the color of the series, it is the case to say it. In our televisions, the realization was sumptuous and licked, very influenced by the work of Jean-Marc Vallée (Big Little Lies, Sharp Objects).
Yves Christian Fournier, whose mentor Jean-Marc Vallée has been since his first short film, even visited the Quebec filmmaker on the set of the miniseries Sharp Objects from HBO, which starred Amy Adams as an alcoholic and badly battered journalist.
” In The man who loved too much, there was a part of homage to Jean-Marc, that’s for sure. I would have liked him to see the series. I even hid, in the eighth episode, a tune that he had used in Big Little Lies says Yves Christian Fournier.
The song is Man in charge by Brent Amaker & The Rodeo. Yves Christian Fournier realizes that his love of dark images and his more radical approach to cinema may have shaken up Noovo viewers.
“But I’m very happy with what I offered, with what we went for visually with our modest budget and with what the actors were able to give in this direction. I’ve done TV that I like to watch, no doubt. And for me, it’s essential,” explains Yves Christian Fournier.
What viewers have most complained about the making of The man who loved too muchand they weren’t wrong about that, it was the mumbling that made crucial dialogue in the series inaudible.
Yves Christian Fournier asks his actors to play “small and in the truth”. Very often, this method results in whispered lines, which the music buries in our living rooms. During the finale, I backed away at least three times as the writer Benoît Ricard (Martin-David Peters), who was suffering from incurable cancer, spoke his last words.
It’s not normal. The text is the cornerstone of any TV series and you have to be able to hear it, beyond any aesthetic consideration. End of this shouting and whispering editorial, thank you.