The week’s cinema releases with Thierry Fiorile and Matteu Maestracci: “La Petite Vadrouille” by Bruno Podalydès and “La Gardav” by Thomas and Dimitri Lemoine.
Published
Reading time: 7 min
It all begins when Franck (Daniel Auteuil), a rich, somewhat old-fashioned provincial investor, decides to entrust the tidy sum of 14,000 euros in cash to his employee, Justine (Sandrine Kiberlain) so that he can organize a charming weekend for her. and a little chic but discreet, on a barge, for a romantic river trip.
Justine then imagines with her friends and her jealous husband Albin, played by Denis Podalydès, a sort of scam: setting sail on the cheapest cruise possible, to pocket at least half the money. Except that it is precisely Justine that her famous boss covets, the opportunity for many adventures, and as many twists and turns in a very boulevard spirit.
If The Little Mop gets a little silted up at two-thirds, there is a charming and absurd humor, which Jacques Tati would not have denied, which accompanies this little cruise. We think of this café where the waiters and the bartender sing for the customers, or this same character who disguises himself to play different lock keepers at each stop.
In terms of form, there is a slightly cushy side in slippers, which certainly lacks a bit of madness, but we smile, we are often charmed. We must also be grateful to Bruno Podalydès for always filming with more or less the same troupe, faces that we like to see again, and who age in the films with us spectators, ‘a je ne sais quoi’ therefore, quite comforting in his cinema.
Thomas Lemoine lives in a city in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. One day, to expand his CV as a beginner actor, he agrees to play a police officer for the filming of a rap video. The real cops show up, big misunderstanding, we called them, because hooded kids were attacking the police. Search, drugs are found in a bag and taken into custody.
From this true story, Thomas and his brother, Dimitri, made a film which has the charm of very low budget films, but a big desire for cinema. The mother is a producer, and this kid with a face as innocent as he is rebellious, Thomas Lemoine astonishes in this burlesque and in no way pontificating vision of life in the cities.
And justly, Gardav belongs to a subgenre of comedy, the stupid film, inevitably divisive, it makes or breaks, personally, I really liked the nerve and the acting talent of Thomas Lemoine, who, for the record, made the effort to meet us in Cannes, and talk to us about his film, he did well.