Adam is a 15-year-old teenager with a physique that is not only unattractive, but also polymorphous: he transforms according to insults. And there is no shortage of them, even flying rather low, in this completely crazy animated film, where we don’t really know whether to laugh or cry.
To see the warm welcome given to Adam is slowly changing, first feature film by Joël Vaudreuil, in theaters this Friday, we must believe that this ambiguity is seductive. Winner of the Grand Prize at the Niigata International Animated Film Festival in Japan earlier this year, the feature film also won the Grand Prize at the Ottawa International Animation Festival in September 2023. World premiered at Annecy (2023), its theatrical landing in France last week (one week before Quebec) aroused both enthusiasm and curiosity.
“Daring animated film about the cruelty of adolescence”, headlined Telerama“insolent poetic fable about identity”, commented The echoesa “real and beautiful curiosity”, summed up Baz’art. Even Release found this “pain-killer” ultimately “endearing”.
The main interested party is the “first surprised”. “This is my first feature film. I had no expectations,” reacted Joël Vaudreuil, who we know as bassist of the group Avec pas d’casque (with whom he is going on tour at the end of the summer), met a few days ago .
At the same time, I think adolescent discomfort is pretty universal.
Joël Vaudreuil, director
His Adam, with an unattractive and angular physique, with his curved back, his arms (and his breasts!) dangling, with a paunchy profile, not to mention his little budding mustache, is a real cliché of an antihero. He obviously attracts ridicule, and not just from the popular clique at his high school. His own grandmother called him “long trunk” throughout his childhood, in addition to finding him “slow”, “fat”, if you want insults, there you go. Occasional gravelly voice included, here signed Isabelle Brouillette. Moreover, in terms of voice, Joël Vaudreuil (who obviously signs the soundtrack, a bit distressing, a nod to “old horror films à la John Carpenter”) gets the job done here with Simon Lacroix, Fabien Cloutier, Marc Beaupré, Sophie Cadieux, etc.
But be careful, this is not a film about bullying.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY FUNFILM DISTRIBUTION
Scene from the animated film Adam is slowly changing
I see the film as a coming of age lively, with dark humor and a particular rhythm.
Joël Vaudreuil, director
In a word, he says, his “spectator’s fantasy”. While animated films usually flirt with either poetry or trash, Adam is slowly changing is rather a slow film, with an aesthetic Beavis and Butt-Head, which plays on unease, halfway between (offbeat) comedy and (crazy) drama. We don’t know which foot to dance on, and that’s intentional. “It’s written so that part of the scenario comes from the state of the spectator. Depending on the state you are in, you will laugh or be sad, explains the director. And I, as a spectator, like this line. »
The ambivalence also persists throughout the film, since here, in fact, everything surprises: the nasty grandmother, as we have said, but also this legless cat that Adam (Simon Lacroix) must take care of, that shirtless neighbor whose house he mows the lawn all summer, and what about the simple-minded uncle who shows up at his house?
Walk the line
By respecting several codes of adolescent comedy, Adam is slowly changing obviously counts its scene of party nicely watered, and clumsiness in quantity. But the humor here comes less from the lines than from the absurdity of all these situations (and we haven’t told you about the poop bags in the trees). As for the finale, without giving anything away, let’s say that it plays again and again on this famous line of ambiguity.
Note that the whole thing is set somewhere in the 1990s, as evidenced by the video cassettes, landline telephones and other dirty magazines hidden under the bed. Slightly autobiographical, Adam? “The basis of the scenario is the emotions that the character feels,” answers Joël Vaudreuil. I drew a lot from the discomforts I had as a teenager. » Discomforts, again, quite “universal”: misplaced guilt, mourning a bad person you didn’t love (we’ll let you guess who), etc.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY FUNFILM DISTRIBUTION
Scene from the animated film Adam is slowly changing
The “polymorphic” side of his character, for its part, obviously invented, comes from Joël Vaudreuil’s interest in the “supernatural”, exploited in his previous short films, notably Magnificent life underwater (2015). “I seem to be interested in the supernatural all the time,” he says. And then it’s interesting that this aspect is linked to the spectator’s interpretations. » Again, ambiguity is required: is it real, associated with Adam’s feelings, or with the perception of the spectators? Up to you !
Joël Vaudreuil had fun and it shows. “I wanted a film where the main character is more of an observer than an actor,” he continues. These script challenges are writing pleasures. » And thanks to its small production team (Olivier Picard and David Pierrat of Parce Que Films), the final result is indeed close to its initial idea. “The fewer people there are, the fewer concessions you make!” The proposal is close to the basic idea,” he says. That is to say a statement, and a tone, on the famous “line”: “funny, but not stupid”.
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