Diehard fans of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache won’t tear up their books screaming in rage and disappointment. The star investigator created by novelist Louise Penny skilfully jumps to the small screen thanks to the immense talent of actor Alfred Molina, aka Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man: No Return.
Sorry ? A Briton to portray the most famous Sûreté du Québec cop on the polar planet? Yes, and it works well. Alfred Molina had the intelligence and the flair not to sink into the vocal caricature of Quebecers as in the infamous series The snake from Netflix, help.
His detective character expresses himself without a sloppy “French-Canadian” accent, thank God, and embodies everything that Armand Gamache represents for his faithful readers: a brilliant man, attentive, cultivated, gentle, honest and capable of self-mockery. Gamache is the antithesis of the alcoholic, gruff and disagreeable investigator who floods Scandinavian literature.
Bonus: it is the Quebec actress Marie-France Lambert who plays the charming wife of Inspector Gamache in the miniseries Three Pines from Amazon Prime Video, shot in Saint-Armand and Montreal last year.
The first two episodes drop Friday, in English and French, and a strong caveat is in order. These two hours, which derive from the novel under the ice, flirt with burlesque and fall flat. The series seeks its tone between the seriousness of the investigations and the comedy stemming from the eccentric characters who populate the fictional village of Three Pines, in the Eastern Townships.
As if the production, torn between Stieg Larsson and Agatha Christie, hesitated to manufacture a dark thriller à la Cardinal and a friendly “who did it?” ” to the Knives Out. In short, it’s rugged and “cringe”, would surely say a teenager.
Fortunately, Three Pines comes together in the third and fourth episodes, adapted from the book The most cruel month. The “summer theatre” side fades and viewers immerse themselves in the series like in a good thriller. Quickly done well done. It’s not the series of the year or the worst, we agree, it’s a correct and effective project. The last half of Three Pines is divided between no killing and The hanged manif you want to read the books before seeing them on the screen.
For those who have never read a novel by Canadian author – and resident of Lac-Brome – Louise Penny, Three Pines recounts the adventures of Montreal inspector Armand Gamache, whom his superior constantly sends to Three Pinesa fictional town in the Eastern Townships, to solve heinous murders.
And it starts with the death of the cruel CC de Poitiers (Simone-Élise Girard), who was electrocuted during an outdoor curling game, what could be more Canadian, eh? Everyone in Three Pines, including her husband and teenage daughter, hated CC de Poitiers, except her lover, renowned photographer Saul Petrov (Iannicko N’Doua).
CC de Poitiers, the Cruella de l’Estrie, lived in a Three Pines mansion that served for a long time as a boarding school for native children. This haunted house also serves as a starting point – and a spiritualism session – for a second investigation by Armand Gamache, flanked by his colleagues from the Sûreté du Québec Jean-Guy Beauvoir (Rossif Sutherland, Kiefer’s brother) and Isabelle Lacoste (She-Mija Tailfeathers).
A fourth policewoman joins the original trio, Constable Yvette Nichol (Sarah Booth), who lives in the Three Pines area, who is both clumsy and clever and who dreams of becoming a detective sergeant.
Most of the characters imagined by Louise Penny appear in Three Pines : Olivier and Gabri from the bistro, Myrna the owner of the village bookstore, the strange poetess Ruth and her pet duck, not forgetting Bea, who no longer operates a yoga/meditation studio, but an Aboriginal art centre.
A super investigation, which does not exist in the books of Louise Penny, oversees the eight episodes of Three Pines and focuses on the disappearance of Blue Two-Rivers (Anna Lambe), an 18-year-old Aboriginal woman and mother of a baby.
Three Pines does not disguise Quebec and shows the Jacques-Cartier Bridge, Saint-Joseph’s Oratory and numerous businesses in Saint-Armand, near the American border. It snows heavily in the first two episodes, but it’s obviously not -20 like the protagonists claim, frankly. They’d button up their parkas better if that was the case.
As the action takes place at home, several characters express themselves in Quebec and let go of “tabarnak” well felt. And when Alfred Molina, our Sherlock Holmes from Brome-Missisquoi, speaks French, it doesn’t scratch your ears, it flows well. You don’t seem to hear poor Emily in Emily in Paris.
Laurence Leboeuf appears in the fifth episode, directed by Podz. You will also see Vincent Leclerc, Frank Schorpion, Mylène Dinh-Robic and Frédéric Antoine-Guimond in Three Pinesa very conventional series, very Columbo, very retro in its spirit.
If you prefer more twisted and creepy stories, take the exit before Three Pines and get your double-double elsewhere.