You have to believe that spring rhymes with cleaning on Quebec TV. After the competition Wash to Win at TVA, another series focuses on large-area scrubbing, literally and figuratively, but in an intelligent, funny and captivating way.
It is Discreet, whose 10 15-minute episodes were posted on the Tou.tv Extra platform. It can be devoured in one evening. It’s tested, checked and approved here.
It is in fact a domestic, and sometimes comic, thriller that incorporates legal, literary and feminist elements. And this story of sexual assault in shades of gray catches us in its rag, like dust in a Swiffer, without lecturing us and without slipping in any unsubtle educational message.
We start the first episode and, poof, we rush to the finale which turns out to be surprising and coherent in the spirit of revenge which animates the two heroines.
Discreet is first of all the name of the housekeeping company which employs Macha (Juliette Gosselin) and Gaby (Aurélia Arandi-Longpré), two young women in their twenties assigned to cleaning the offices of a prestigious firm. of lawyers. The two surface technicians work at night, on the third and fourth floors of Place Ville Marie, a gray tower that rises in downtown Montreal.
In the first episode, the lawyers of the Fichaud law firm celebrate, in their premises, the arrival of a major client, a star chef accused of sexual assault by a popular singer. The party, washed down with wine and sprinkled with cocaine, spills into the early morning, and Gaby, the more extroverted housekeeper of the two, joins the party, which gets out of control.
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Aurélia Arandi-Longpré plays Gaby.
Turned on by the sexy litigator Jarvis (Joey Scarpellino), the bubbly Gaby instead falls into the hands of Manuel (Olivier Gervais-Courchesne), an ambitious and charming lawyer, who knows all the classics of French literature. There is flirting, a first kiss, then a heavy unease, but the flamboyant Gaby never consents to the intimate relationship, any more than she rejects Manuel or pronounces the word “no” out loud. Hidden under the desk where the sexual act takes place, I won’t divulge why she is hiding there, Gaby’s colleague, the shy Macha (Juliette Gosselin), hears everything, without seeing anything. Like us, in front of our screen.
This traumatic event will unite the two young housekeepers, who will then plot to make Manuel pay for his actions. The two protagonists of Discreet, Macha and Gaby, however, live on different planets and do not have the same notion of the means to take justice. The collision of their realities will influence them both, for the better and sometimes the worse.
A master’s student in literature, the calm Macha hugs the walls and almost hides behind her fringe of hair to blend into the decor. With her wide headband, she resembles the girl with the pearl earring in Vermeer’s famous painting.
Resourceful and bright, Gaby is more akin to the expressive Eva (Erika Suarez) of the series After the flood. Having a Mexican father, Gaby loves hip-hop, clings to her vape and expresses herself in a Franglais that will make all the grandfathers and mothers on the planet bristle.
Like, she made herself call outwhat are oddsIt is fucking nastyI crave attention, I put myself in situations sketchShe flash his titsshe is the most victim guilty ever, it’s obvious and the whole shebang. Yes it’s wack by ear, but it is a modern reality. Several teenagers and twenty-somethings speak in this bilingual way, and the series Discreet only puts a magnifying glass on this phenomenon, even if it is wrong AF.
Moreover, Gaby’s Spanish-speaking father deplores the hybrid language of his daughter, who understands three languages but who does not perfectly master any of them.
Written and directed by Juliette Gosselin and Sophia Belahmer, Discreet is not a series about shadow workers, nor a series about poverty, but a well-crafted thriller – and punctuated with black humor – about female anger and sorority. There are, in each of the ten episodes, punches that encourage us to watch the series compulsively.
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Juliette Gosselin and Aurélia Arandi-Longpré are excellent in the series, writes our columnist.
Like Gaby, Macha also hides a suffering story which torments her and which requires, how can I put it, radical intervention. It starts with polite threats and ends with a lot of noise.
The two main actresses of Discreet are excellent. We believe in their improbable friendship, fueled by a common revolt against injustice and impunity.
Discreet also incorporates a literary component into its story, notably because the academic Macha participates in an anonymous book club with a client of the office tower where she polishes the toilet bowls. The two book addicts exchange, through a drawer, titles by Paul Valéry, Simone de Beauvoir, Charles Baudelaire, Gustave Flaubert and Colette.
The opening credits of Discreet evokes at the same time Sabrina, the apprentice witch and the best-known book by essayist Mona Chollet, Witches: the unconquered power of women. Because yes, it’s possible to pass the broom with fun and substance, well!