Céline Devaux, awarded several times for her short films, signs a first feature film in the form of an offbeat tale that mixes cinema and animation. This comedy about depression in a world that is no longer running smoothly is served by an irresistible Blanche Gardin / Laurent Lafitte duo.Everybody loves Joan releases September 7.
Jeanne (Blanche Gardin) is an idealist. She wants to save the planet and has designed a super structure to recover the waste that pollutes the oceans. But his invention is accidentally unhooked and sinks into the abyss. The failure of this project, that of a lifetime, provokes a cataclysm in her that leaves her completely dejected. Overwhelmed by negative thoughts, ruined, over-indebted, she finds herself forced to go to Lisbon, the city where she grew up, to sell the apartment of her mother who died a year earlier. At the airport, she meets Jean (Laurent Lafitte), an old school friend.
In Lisbon, Jeanne is overcome by the memory of her mother’s suicide a year earlier. She wanders like a lost soul, vegetates in the apartment haunted by her ghost instead of packing boxes. Jean, whimsical and endearing, interferes, a bit clumsily, in the Lisbon and melancholy parenthesis of Jeanne…
/2022/07/20/phpu9u1KS.jpg)
Self-devaluation, toxic thoughts, inopportune judgments, a small inner voice, omnipresent, ironic, often funny, harasses poor Jeanne. This voice, a small character in its own right, takes the form of a hairy fanatic (between ghost and Cro Magnon) in animated sequences that punctuate the film. The device works well, in a game of ping-pong between the dialogues and thoughts of Jeanne, often contradictory. But when the latter gradually regains a taste for life, this invading little voice ends up lowering its tone, until it disappears…
Playing on the antagonisms of the two characters, the Gardin/Lafitte duo sparks. On the one hand Jeanne, immured in her dark thoughts, haunted by her memories, stuck in her principles, a slight rigidity in her character, internalizing her feelings, trying at all costs to keep control. On the other, Jean, a totally uninhibited whimsical character, who expresses without restraint everything that goes through his head, shamelessly telling Jeanne that he too went through a major episode of depression. But there is also what brings them together: a certain idealistic vision of the world.
These two characters are underlined by the outfits: for Jeanne, fitted dark clothes and dark glasses, for Jean extravagant outfits, pants and shirt too wide, multicolored sunglasses… The game of Blanche Gardin and Laurent Lafitte, all in restraint, accentuates the comedy of situations.
/2022/07/20/phpM3t04F.jpg)
The duo is completed by well-drawn secondary characters, such as the handsome Vitor, Jeanne’s Portuguese ex-lover, embodied Nuno Lopez or even Simon, Jeanne’s endearing brother, played by an excellent Maxence Tual. Also note the remarkable work on the sound, with the soundtrack concocted by Flavien Berger.
A bit like a Rohmer tale, Everybody loves Joan tackles deep questions in a light and offbeat tone -suicide, mourning, depression- in an original form. This touching comedy full of fantasy will brighten up your back to school.
Gender : drama, comedy, animation
Director: Celine Devaux
Actors: Blanche Gardin, Laurent Lafitte, Maxence Tual, Nuno Lopez
Country : France
Duration : 1h35
Exit : September 7, 2022
Distributer : Diaphana Cast
Summary: Everyone has always loved Jeanne. Today, she hates herself. Over-indebted, she has to go to Lisbon and put her mother’s apartment, who died a year earlier, up for sale. At the airport she bumps into Jean, a whimsical and somewhat intrusive former high school friend.