First international adaptation of the British series State of the Union created by the Nick Hornby-Stephen Frears duo, Free exchangewill land on our screens on March 10 (ICI Tou.tv). Directed by Francis Leclerc, starring Louis Morissette and Marie-Claude Guérin, who co-signed the adaptation with Guillaume Tellier, the series approaches with charm, finesse and intelligence the theme of wear and tear in the couple. A unifying subject repeatedly dissected on the screen, but not in this way.
First, the story is broken down into short fragments in ten ten-minute episodes. The context is the same each time: a couple meet up before their weekly appointment with the therapist to have a drink (he a pint of red wine, she a glass of white wine) and decompress a little, always at the same bistro. It’s time to go, we see them cross the street, arrive in front of the door of the shrink’s office and then, it’s over.
Tour in ten days at the sumptuous Square Dominion tavern, Free exchange is practically behind closed doors. The art of dialogue is in the spotlight, deft ping-pong, the real engine of this winning series in its original version of an Emmy award for best comedy (short format).
At the origin of the Quebec adaptation, there is the actress Marie-Claude Guérin, freshly returned from Berlin, where the feature film by Denis Côté A summer like this, in which she plays a role, had its world premiere. “Like everyone else, I was watching a lot of series during the pandemic. At some point, I got tired of heavy drama thrillers. I needed something lighter and came across this series by Nick Hornby (High Fidelity, About a Boy), an author I love. I watched State of the Union in one evening and immediately, I wanted to adapt it, confides the actress who we could see on the small screen in The breakaway, District 31, Unit 9, Plan B. In a pandemic context, the fact that it was very easy to shoot was an advantage. The rights were a little more difficult to obtain, but we succeeded. »
Difficult to adapt such an intimate series so that it rings true, culturally speaking? Without forgetting the British humor… How to make it travel to us? “Having experienced it in the theatre, I find it easier to adapt British works than French ones,” she observes. the delivery and the way of approaching the English game are closer to ours than one might think. »
“If we had staged a French couple who talks for ten episodes, one of the two would have ended up getting on the nerves and leaving because they are more hysterical, adds director Francis Leclerc, caught between two nights of filming from Diver. Here, respect is present, they remain calm, listening to each other. »
If most of the lines of dialogue are quite close to the original text, the cultural references have been transposed. For example, the issues in the couple around Brexit are transformed here into a small spat around the independence of Quebec and the vote of one of the two for the CAQ, to make the other sweat. And where Tom, an unemployed music critic, recalls a landmark concert by the Turds in 1989, François instead invokes a show by Godspeed You! Black Emperor at the Olympia in 2000.
Yes, Louis Morissette appears here in a misuse. Forget the galvanized workaholics and dehumanized modern men he often embodied. In Free exchangehe became a music journalist on hold, loser sympathetic and father of two boys, weary lover of a charming geriatrician who has been unfaithful to him. With a hoarse voice, Morissette plays casually.
The chemistry operates between him and his partner, an essential element in this series which is based on their osmosis marked by tenderness and attention to each other, even in the most tense moments. Marie-Claude Guérin: “We met on projects, but we didn’t know each other in the game, Louis and I. We learned to work as a team to recreate the complicity between the characters played by Rosamund Park and Chris O’Dowd. Louis is a generous partner, it’s easy to play with him. We allowed ourselves rehearsals, a rare luxury on TV. »
“Through their conflicts, the characters come together and that’s what’s beautiful,” says Francis Leclerc, happy to revisit the short form, tamed in its beginnings with short films, commercials and music videos. Through their “ostinage”, they have a real bond. We dig into the characters as much as in a feature film because we spend 100 minutes in total with these two. At the end of the ten episodes, the story is closed. It did me good between The time grabber and The plungertwo big complicated projects. Free exchange, a series that feels good, and in which people will recognize themselves. It’s like a big ice cream cone. »
Free-trade will be presented on ICI Tou.tv from March 10.