It’s always dangerous to talk about the “real world”, or to talk about the “real world”, in a TV series set in the regions.
If the show abuses folkloric characters, you know, the ones who express themselves so colorfully, the show seems to poke fun at people who live outside of urban centers.
If the TV series depicts a rough environment, it is accused of amplifying prejudices about the poverty – intellectual and material – of the inhabitants of a bunch of villages in Quebec.
In short, the pitfalls of this type of TV are multiplying like those of preparing a shakchouka for the duel of Chiefs!.
Fortunately, Pearls du Club illico avoids these pitfalls thanks to its sensitive, funny and poignant texts, written by the author Erika Soucy, one of Fabien Cloutier’s collaborators on the series Leo.
There is also a clear relationship between Leo And Pearls. These two dramatic comedies portray so-called ordinary people, therefore not tormented investigators or doctors on Adderall, whom the screenwriters do not judge, on the contrary. Both in Fabien Cloutier and Erika Soucy, we feel a lot of affection and tenderness for the middle class who are struggling, but who have their hearts screwed in the right place.
The technical details, before putting on these Beads. This charming novelty, cut into 13 half-hours, is released on Videotron’s Club illico on Thursday and talks about maternal exhaustion and access to late-term abortion with heart-warming benevolence.
Returning to the main program, the title of this series refers to the two daughters of single mother Stéphanie (excellent Bianca Gervais), 32, whom she affectionately calls her pearls. The oldest, born of an unknown father, is called Laurence (Cassandra Latreille), is 16 years old and is a top of the class, brilliant and full of spirit.
Just as bright, the youngest, Juliette (Anouk Tanguay), lives with attention deficit disorder, ADD, and absorbs all the emotions that revolve around her. Her father Yoan (Lucien Ratio), with whom she spends every other weekend, is a loser, a teenager who loves video games a little too much and who goes out with a little youth (Camille Felton) who believes that Marc Dupré is much better known than Nelson Mandela.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Bianca Gervais plays Stephanie in Pearls.
The first episode begins with a misunderstanding. Stéphanie (Bianca Gervais) returns from a ten-day trip to Mexico with her secret lover, while those around her believe she is coming back from a yoga retreat. Stephanie’s best friend, Cynthia (Sharon Fontaine-Ishpatao), the only one aware of this Southern escapade, however, aggravated the initial lie by telling the village that Stephanie was suffering from depression.
Without divulging anything, this little lie swells — we even organize a party depression to our heroine – and it will have unfortunate repercussions on the already not very simple life of Stéphanie, who works as a receptionist at the town hall of her village.
The story of Beads takes place in the fictional municipality of Nordest, on the Haute-Côte-Nord. In reality, the exterior scenes of the series were shot in Portneuf-sur-Mer, halfway between Tadoussac and Baie-Comeau, the birthplace of screenwriter Erika Soucy, who often collaborated on the radio program. The more the merrier, the more we read.
The character that stands out the fastest is that of M.me Caron (Chantal Baril), the drooling owner of Stéphanie’s home who makes life difficult for her. She’s “endearing” to the max.
Coming from the Innu community, Cynthia, Stéphanie’s childhood friend, remains an enigma after the first four episodes I watched. She responds to each of Stephanie’s emergencies, devotes herself entirely to her two daughters (the two pearls) and demands nothing in return. An employee of the village restaurant, Cynthia leads an ascetic existence that hides a painful past.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE PRODUCTION
Linda Malo is back in a series with her role in Pearls.
Pearls also stars Linda Malo as a friendly bank manager, and Bruno Marcil as the owner of the biggest transport company in the area. It’s very good, I repeat.
The biggest flaw of these Beads scintillating? The disturbing number of inaudible lines spoken there. It’s a very annoying problem if you have to rewind every 30 seconds in an episode that’s only 21 minutes long. And that greatly increases the risk of stalling.
In the first episode, for example, there are bits of dialogue that you have to resolve not to understand in order to continue listening. Luckily, it’s not so much crucial info that gets lost in limp diction or bad sound.
Regardless, it’s downright annoying. Especially since mumbling has been complained about for so many years. What are broadcasters and producers waiting for to correct this problem which triggers an avalanche of complaints from viewers? Are they hard of the sheet?
This “mumbling” phenomenon also affects American and British series, which forces telephiles to activate the subtitles function even in their mother tongue.
Perhaps it should be better articulated and lower the volume of the background music. Such a simple idea, which still does not pass.