The first two episodes ofAudrey came back, from Club illico, are really strange. Very weird, even.
The main character, the famous Audrey (Florence Longpré) in the title, wakes up from an 18-year-old coma and does not utter a single complete sentence. She emits sounds, fixes the vacuum and activates the lever of her electric chair. That’s pretty much all that happens.
What plunged the young woman into this semi-vegetative state? What was her life like before the accident, which took away half of her life? The viewer does not know this and they are given very few clues to help them.
Around Audrey, her mother Mireille (Josée Deschênes) and her father André (Denis Bouchard), loving parents, fill the void with very “xavierdolanesque” chatter about chicken pasta, the heating in the car and the “Gratinage” of lasagna. And what does the half-human, half-raven creature that appears sporadically in history do? Mystery.
Fortunately, Videotron’s Club illico has been offering since Thursday the 10 half-hourAudrey came back, TV series co-signed by Florence Longpré (Can you hear me ?) and Guillaume Lambert (Adulthood), which prevents us from dropping out after these two difficult episodes of approach.
As much as I immediately embarked in Can you hear me ? at Télé-Québec, it took me a long time to learn Audrey came back, a novelty from Club illico that is unlike anything else (it is a quality, of course, to be so original and unique).
For me, the click happened in the third episode. The story goes back in 2001 and shows us Audrey (then played by Ellicyane Paradis) in fifth grade with her best friend Cynthia (Charlie Lemay-Thivierge) in sequences reminiscent of the magnificent film Lady Bird, by Greta Gerwig.
It is by seeing Audrey at 17, with her liveliness and eccentricity, that one takes in affection Audrey at 35, neurasthenic, her eyes extinguished and who must relearn absolutely everything of everyday life: talk, walk, wash. The connection between the two universes (2001 and 2020) allows us to better understand Audrey’s distress and the distress that afflicts those around him. Then put on the rest of the series.
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As we leave, we understand that Audrey’s rehabilitation and awakening will be long and arduous. Speech therapy, physiotherapy, Audrey does not remember anyone or anything and it is a domestic animal that will gently open its memory box.
Audrey’s angry little brother, Clément (Dominic St-Laurent, discovered in the hilarious pubs of Roue de fortune), is a time bomb, always in “tabarnak” against the slightest silliness in life. We feel that there are unresolved things with his sister and the rest of the family. Because life went on during Audrey’s absence. There have been births, divorces and remarriages, in particular.
The accuracy of the performers ofAudrey came back is mind-blowing. Denis Bouchard as a bruised father (and owner of the Party 2000 company), Josée Deschênes as an overprotective mother and Florence Longpré, who inherits the most difficult score of the series, that of a thirty-something voiceless and prisoner of her body. Everything happens in the eyes of the actress and the smallness of her gestures. It is very well camped.
IMAGE PROVIDED BY CLUB ILLICO
Denis Bouchard in Audrey came back
The action takes place in Sorel-Tracy (birthplace of author Guillaume Lambert) and director Guillaume Lonergan (Can you hear me ?) shows the ugly and the pretty of this town in the Montérégie. A bit like Tomorrow of men, where there emanated a beauty of this industrial coldness.
In the second episode, Josée Deschênes also gives a very funny monologue on the reason for the merger between Sorel and Tracy in 2000. Neither rich nor poor, the protagonists evolve in a modest environment, which looks like any suburb of third Crown. It is almost the “real world” that we watch over the episodes.
And as in Can you hear me ?, music takes an important place in Audrey came back. The use of The Suburbs, Arcade Fire, is awesome, just like that of We Like to Party, Vengaboys, you see, that casts a wide net. Ah yes, it is the pianist Alexandra Stréliski who signs the soundtrack ofAudrey came back. Lots of talent per second.
We do not feel any snobbery on the part of the creators ofAudrey came back, who use a scene from Marie-Soleil Tougas’ funeral to enrich the plot and which even slip a joke of fart in the scenario.
Audrey is back and it’s good for us. Ah yes, for the spooky crow, you will understand a little better in the sixth episode. Audrey takes her time. Slowly but surely.