Five years after “La Ch’tite Famille”, Dany Boon is back at the cinema with a comedy entitled “Life for real”. In this feature film which he directed himself, he gives the reply to Kad Merad and Charlotte Gainsbourg and plays the role of Tridan Lagache, a fifty-year-old who resigns from the Mexican holiday club in which he has always worked to return to Paris and find his childhood sweetheart. Lost, he is then lodged with a half-brother he did not know existed and the adventure begins…
If the scenario could have seduced the spectators and fans of Dany Boon, this is unfortunately not the case. According to information from BFM TV, the actor, comedian, director, screenwriter and producer would indeed have made his worst start in 17 years. After five days of screening, only 351,479 spectators went to the cinema to see the film.
To make matters worse, critics have rocketed on social networks. “The film should have been called Club Merde, it’s so bad. It’s terrible. […] To begin with, the story where the guy is called Tridan because he was born in Club Med, it’s completely absurd. And then poor Charlotte Gainsbourg who lands in there, and is forced to say stupid things. She sees that it’s dramatic and she plays like those girls in the scripted reality show, it rings false” launched Éric Neuhoff, journalist at Le Figaro.
“Life for real”: spectators still absent in the second week
This Wednesday, May 3, 2023, the Destination Ciné Twitter account addressed this subject by providing more information. We thus learn that the spectators were even less present in the rooms the second week of projection: 196,249 entries counted. Thus, the accumulation in two weeks reached 619,915 spectators. “The film should not even reach the million” can we read then that the budget disbursed for its realization is 29 million euros.
In comparison, Dany Boon’s other films have almost all been box office hits. 4.4 million admissions for “Welcome to the Ch’tis”, “Nothing to declare” had attracted 3 million curious people and “Supercondriaque” had generated 2.1 million ticket sales.
ES