Eugénie Grandet par Honoré de Balzac

Réunion de pitch Screen Rant : Eugénie Grandet

– Alors, tu as un film pour moi ?

– Oui monsieur je le sais ! C’est appelé Eugénie Grandet et c’est le n°30 de la très populaire série Balzac. Ce-

– Le public a-t-il besoin d’un autre film de Balzac après Une ténébreuse affaire?

– Absolument. Celui-ci est différent, c’est drôle et il a une torsion.

– Joli. Alors que se passe-t-il ?

– Je vais te dire. (voir spoiler)[Félix Grandet is a miser—

– Misers are tight! I see Ebenezer Scrooge, I see cute animated characters, I see songs you can hum and

Screen Rant pitch meeting: Eugénie Grandet

– So, you have a movie for me?

– Yes sir I do! It’s called Eugénie Grandet and it’s #30 in the ever-popular Balzac series. It—

– Does the public need another Balzac movie after Une ténébreuse affaire?

– Absolutely. This one’s different, it’s funny and it’s got a twist.

– Nice. So what happens?

– I’m going to tell you. (view spoiler)[Félix Grandet is a miser—

– Misers are tight! I see Ebenezer Scrooge, I see cute animated characters, I see songs you can hum and a heartwarming ending, can we get Michael Caine?

– No sir, first you think this looks like Dickens but it isn’t. Rich, miserly old M. Grandet has a daughter called Eugénie. Everyone in the little town spends their time discussing who’s going to marry her and get her father’s money. She doesn’t want any of them. Then one day her dashing cousin Charles arrives from Paris. She falls in love with him in an instant.

– Wow wow wow. Wow. I see Pride and Prejudice, I see Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen and French at the same time, can we get Keira Knightley?

– No, Eugénie is quite plain. And as soon as Charles turns up, Félix receives a letter from Guillaume, Charles’s father and Félix’s brother, to say that Guillaume has gone bankrupt and will have shot himself by the time the letter arrives.

– Yikes.

– Charles is distraught when he finds his father has committed suicide. Eugénie is nice to him and he falls in love with her too. But Félix packs Charles off to the East Indies to make his fortune so Charles and Eugénie have to say a tearful goodbye. Charles has no money, but Eugénie gives him the gold coins she’s been receiving on her birthdays, the only money she’s got. In return, he gives her the priceless jewel box he received from his dead mother.

– Why does he do that instead of just selling the box?

– So that the movie can happen.

– Fair enough.

– Now Charles is gone and there’s a huge mess with Guillaume’s bankruptcy. We’re going to spend about twenty-five minutes explaining all the tricky legal manoeuvers that Félix uses to keep the creditors hanging on.

– Sounds like a good way to pad the running time.

– Yes sir. Everything goes fine until Félix finds out that Eugénie has given away her gold coins. He completely loses it and locks her in her room and says she’s going to get nothing but dry bread and water until she tells him what’s happened to the money.

– Oh no.

– Félix’s wife, who’s already unwell, is overcome with emotion and faints. She lies down in her bed, but Félix keeps telling her she has to work on Eugénie and find out what’s happened to the money. Eugénie bursts in and tells her father to stop, he’s going to kill her mom.

– If she’s been locked in her room, how does she burst in?

– I don’t know.

– Fair enough.

– Well, by and by Félix’s wife does die. But the legal situation is that Eugénie inherits all her money. So in practice Félix has lost half his assets. He decides he has to persuade Eugénie to sign everything over to him.

– I guess that’s pretty difficult?

– No, it’s super-easy, barely an inconvenience.

– Wow and yikes.

– But Félix is very old, and after a while he dies too. Eugénie does end up getting everything.

– So now when Charles comes back, they’ll both be rich and they’ll be able to marry each other and live happily ever after?

– Not exactly. Charles does come back, and he’s rich, but he’s also become evil and cynical after spending seven years as a slave owner in the East Indies. He decides he’s going to marry the ugly daughter of a ruined aristocrat who’ll be his passport into high society.

– Don’t you need to explain why Eugénie and Charles have never exchanged any letters during the seven years they’ve been apart?

– No no no that’s too much work.

– Well you’re probably right. So what’s the ending?

– Charles enters a loveless marriage with the aristocratic girl, and Eugénie enters a loveless marriage with the local guy who’s been pursuing her since forever, and they both live unhappily until they die.

– Sounds like it’ll be box-office dynamite. When can we start?

Newspaper headline:

DISASTROUS OPENING WEEKEND FOR EUGENIE GRANDET
STUDIO COLLAPSES, PRODUCER SHOOTS HIMSELF (hide spoiler)]