The quality of a novel does not in any way guarantee its success on the big screen. Thus Alfred Hitchcock transformed station novels into masterpieces, while Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam hit a wall with Don Quixote. closer to us, Gannetsby Anne Hébert, revisited by Yves Simoneau, did not meet with unanimous approval, while Simon Lavoie was touched by grace by transposing The little girl who loved matches too muchby Gaetan Soucy.
On the strength of the successful adaptations of works by Marc Robitaille (A summer without points or hits), by Felix Leclerc (Barefoot in the dawn) and Fred Pellerin (The time grabber), Francis Leclerc was off to a good head start in bringing Stéphane Larue’s remarkable autobiographical novel to life, The plunger (Le Quartanier, 2016). Especially since he chose Éric K. Boulianne as his ally who, although in his first literary adaptation, had demonstrated his talents as a screenwriter more than once on TV and in the cinema (Fisherman, From father to cop 2, The Barbarians of La Malbaie, viking…).
While remaining faithful to the novel, to the raw energy that emanates from it, to the brilliance of its style, to its urban poetry, Leclerc and Boulianne have managed to impose their stamp on it. The first by cleverly creating atmospheres that are sometimes icy like the Montreal winter, sometimes torrid like a kitchen during the firing; the second by giving it his innate sense of rhythm and his gift for creating characters that are larger than life.
Learning story flirting with the thriller on a background of screaming metal (the playlist is also quite jubilant), The plunger features Stéphane (Henri Picard), 19, a native of Trois-Rivières, studying graphic design at the Cégep du Vieux Montréal. When he’s not stuck in a book, he’s got his eyes glued to a video poker machine. Deep in debt, hiding his gambling addiction from those close to him, except his cousin Malik (Guillaume Laurin) and his girlfriend, Mari-Lou (Jade Charbonneau), he landed, thanks to a friend, a job as a dishwasher in a chic Plateau Mont-Royal restaurant, La Trattoria.
In this rowdy kitchen where dirty dishes pile up at breakneck speed, where Renaud (Fayolle Jean Jr.) has to deal with the incompetence of Christian (Éric K. Boulianne), Stéphane meets a colorful fauna, whose whimsical Bonnie (Joan Hart), with whom he shares a love of metal, the excessive Bébert (Charles-Aubey Houde), who takes him under his wing, and the intriguing Greg (Maxime de Cotret), whom he does not want to displease .
Thoroughness and maniacal care
Like the novel, what seduces above all in the film, it is the meticulousness with which the addiction to the game, the restoration, the nightlife, the loneliness of the big cities are portrayed. In this regard, we must salute the artistic direction of Mathieu Lemay, who created the sets with maniacal care, the sound design of Olivier Calvert, which immerses us in places in a horror film atmosphere, the photo of Steve Asselin, who knows how to sculpt shadows so well, and Isabelle Malenfant’s editing, which fits perfectly with the ambient tumult. Borrowing from the aesthetics of Scorsese and the codes of genre cinema, Francis Leclerc powerfully translates the influence of the game on the central character, its attraction for this universe where all excesses are allowed, the abyss of lies in which it sink.
In the role of the shy Stéphane, Henri Picard plays his score perfectly, without letting himself be overshadowed by his partners defending more flamboyant roles. If he speaks little, his eyes and his face say a lot about the torments of his character. Hats off to Marc-André Grondin who provides the film’s narration, lending thirty-year-old Stéphane a bit of a drooling assurance (for the record, Picard had embodied the adolescent version of the character of Grondin in Mafia Inc.., of Podz). Finally, the great revelation of the film turns out to be Charles-Aubey Houde. In each scene, the actor imposes himself with panache and infuses his gargantuan cook with a moving humanity.