Laure Calamy in a lively comedy about dating sites and libido in couples

What would Madame Bovary have done with a smartphone and dating apps? This is what director Caroline Vignal invites us to explore by drawing with humor the portrait of a well-behaved married woman, with a bun and a straight skirt, who happily lets herself be drawn into the whirlwind of easy encounters on the web.

After giving her first leading role to Laure Calamy in Antoinette in the Cévennes in 2020, Caroline Vignal once again offers the actress a character cut out for her in Iris and men. This comedy about libido in couples and dating sites is released in theaters on January 3, 2024.

Iris, in her early forties, dentist, married to a handsome architect, two brilliant daughters, beautiful Parisian apartment, has everything to be happy. The only downside is that nothing is happening in his relationship anymore. A mother of a student she meets in a hallway at her daughter’s high school suggests she register on dating sites.

Iris lets herself be convinced and launches into a frantic race for men, while her husband, focused on his work, suspects nothing… This double life gives Iris back the joy of living.

“I felt dead”

With this new film, Caroline Vignal once again explores romantic relationships, this time from the angle of marital love, doomed to crumble over the years. Launched on dating platforms, Iris now lives to the rhythm of notifications on her smartphone, which are so many promises of erotic meetings with no future (she makes this a principle).

Appointments that she honors in the afternoon, neglecting her customers. “I felt invisible. I felt dead”, she said, once she came back to life. Are dating sites the new cure for marital melancholy?

The dental office and appointments with a gallery of well-chosen men provide golden opportunities for situational comedy. Punctuated by small, well-felt sketches, by delightful winks at the viewer and by tasty dialogues, Iris and men questions us with lightness and humor on the eternal subject of love and sex, the rules of which have been turned upside down by the arrival of the smartphone and dating applications.

If the film does not keep its promises from start to finish, with some drops in speed and the impression at times of going in circles, the director nevertheless takes full advantage of her subject. The film is carried by the liveliness and humor of Laure Calamy, very accurate in her role as a woman who launches her adventure without restraint, and by the hollow acting of Vincent Elbaz, surprising in this character of a discreet husband.

The sheet

Gender : Comedy
Director: Caroline Vignal
Actors: Laure Calamy, Vincent Elbaz, Suzanne de Baecque
Country : France
Duration : 1h38 minutes
Exit : January 3, 2023
Distributer : Diaphana Distribution
Synopsis : A wonderful husband, two perfect daughters, a thriving dental practice: everything is going well for Iris. But since when has she not made love? Maybe it’s time to take a lover. Registering on an ordinary dating app, Iris opens Pandora’s box. Men are going to fall… As if it were raining!