Approach transidentity from a comic point of view, all carried by an iconic duo of cisgender actors? Tristan Séguéla makes a risky bet with his new feature film, A happy man, which brings together for the first time on screen Fabrice Luchini and Catherine Frot. Although he does not avoid all the pitfalls, the French director chooses the path of benevolence, without giving up his sense of rhythm and formula.
Jean (Fabrice Luchini) is a conservative mayor of the small town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, in Pas-de-Calais. Re-elected without too much effort for two terms, he is determined to stand in the next elections and win them hands down. However, his plans are turned upside down when Edith (Catherine Frot), his wife of 40 years, announces that he can no longer deny his true nature and begins his transition to finally be able to live as a man.
To facilitate the acceptance of her husband – and avoid harming his election campaign – the one who is now called Eddy agrees to make the subterfuge last a few more weeks. However, the evidence does not take long to jump to the eyes and upset both the countryside and Jean, who categorically refuses to accept reality.
Tristan Séguéla shows a clear desire never to make fun of his subject, instead making fun of the outraged reaction of the character played by Fabrice Luchini. The actor, like his partner, gets off lightly in this vaudeville score which, with less good performers, would no doubt have sunk into caricature.
The filmmaker therefore chooses to treat a delicate subject with the lightness and coarseness of burlesque, sacrificing in the process the emotions and, consequently, the truth of the challenges, impacts, heartbreaks and great beauties of such a quest for freedom. The only touching moments, gathered in the last scenes of the film, move away from Louis de Funès to borrow the codes of American romantic comedy, in a final that is sanitized to say the least.
We can salute Tristan Séguéla’s desire to reach out to an audience less familiar or even resistant to his subject. The tone adopted, which is intended to be inclusive, but above all didactic, is not aimed at the viewer who already knows transidentity and gender issues, who risks laughing out loud several times. For example, this scene where Eddy goes to a meeting of a support group, in which all the nuances of gender identity and sexual orientation are declined, in an exchange which is intended to be educational, but which recalls especially the human propensity to make fun of the unknown.
Tristan Séguéla knows that difference is a vector of comedy. His external point of view offers him the luxury of favoring kindness over judgment; self-mockery over morality, and thus reaching as many people as possible. For him, the lesson is clear: love triumphs over everything, judgments like fear, stubbornness like laziness. The dream, isn’t that the whole beauty of cinema?