“Why are you smiling”, a social tragicomedy with Raphaël Quenard, Jean-Pascal Zadi and Emmanuelle Devos

The film “Pourquoi tu sourire” is released in theaters. Directed by Christine Paillard and Chad Chenouga, this social comedy features a rather irresistible trio, composed of Jean-Pascal Zadi, Raphaël Quenard and Emmanuelle Devos.

Why are you smiling, by Christine Paillard and Chad Chenouga, in theaters Wednesday, July 3, is based on an indefinable but fairly classic genre of French cinema: the social comedy or tragicomedy. Wisi (Jean-Pascal Zadi), a penniless young man who sleeps outside and pretends to be an Ivorian migrant to soften people up and get more help, meets Jérôme (Raphaël Quenard), a bit of a racist on the edges, who has “work phobia” and cannot afford to bury his mother with dignity.

This is the beginning of an improbable friendship that Raphaël Quenard tells us about: “Two losers, two outsiders, two opportunists too”Who “take advantage of the goodness, kindness and generosity of a lady who dedicates her life to another”. Emmanuelle Devos plays Marina, a solitary association manager who they will take advantage of “to get back into life“. The two lunatics will compete in tricks to first get accommodation from Marina, then try to scrape together some money as best they can, with among other things an episode that will make one of the two a very clumsy gigolo.

“These are two guys who, despite the fact that they are in obvious and personal difficulties, do not wallow in it and decide to fight and play to the best of their ability.”

Raphael Quenard

to franceinfo

But the beautiful idea of ​​the film, and its matrix, is to see solitary beings, knocked about by life, fulfill themselves together: “For me, it’s really the very basis of life. The trajectory of human beings is to go through this experience collectively.believes Jean-Pascal Zadi, I know that there are many people who say that fulfillment does not necessarily come from others, we can be fulfilled ourselves, but for me it is with others that we can accomplish great things.”

And if the Zadi-Quenard duo, composed of two of the most loved and sought-after actors of the moment, is obviously the strong point of the film, it would be more accurate to talk about the trio formed with Emmanuelle Devos, always impeccable and decidedly at ease in all styles.