Directed by Florent Bernard, screenwriter of La Flamme, this comedy regarding a couple at the end of their tether, with José Garcia and Charlotte Gainsbourg, was rewarded at the Alpe d’Huez festival.
With And more if affinities, it is the comedy that moved and made people cry with laughter on the 27th Alpe d’Huez International Comedy Film Festival. Road movie regarding a couple at the end of their tether during a weekend full of twists and turns, hailed by the Grand Prix of the event, Nous, les Leroys is released this Wednesday, April 10 at the cinema.
For its director Florent Bernard, aka FloBer, creator of the FloodCast podcast and screenwriter of La Flamme, of which it is the first film, it is a very special emotion: “Like we had the Grand Prix de l’Alpe d’Huez , everyone is going to expect the funniest movie on Earth and that’s not the case.”
Its mix of humor and emotion, which breathes new life into comedy made in France, sold out its previews in recent weeks. “People find the film funny, moving. Many people tell us that it makes them think regarding their lives,” rejoices Florent Bernard. “That was our goal with this film.”
Shock of generations
When We, the Leroys begins, Sandrine (Charlotte Gainsbourg) announces to her husband Christophe (José Garcia) that she wants a divorce. Their children are soon old enough to leave home. In a last-ditch operation, Christophe organizes a weekend in key places in their family’s history.
A personal story for the director: “I feel like I was the first generation where divorce was no longer the drama that was presented in a film like Kramer vs. Kramer. For our parents’ generation, it was still a dramatic and catastrophic event. This clash of generations interested me.”
Unlike many family films, the teenagers take up as much screen space as their parents. “I wanted to put the teenagers at the center who are often considered secondary characters in this type of story. I wanted no one to be sidelined and for them to each have their own story.”
“A real comedy”
If We, the Leroys is “a real comedy”, the theme of divorce remains heavy, recognizes Florent Bernard. “The film is sometimes harsh. It will sometimes present these characters in a bad light because they are human beings. That’s also why they are beautiful.” And this is what won over the audience at the previews:
“Part of the public understands what I wanted to do with the character of José. He’s not always a sympathetic character. He’s angry. He’s a pure product of patriarchy. And people appreciate that we can show the character without excusing him. We do not minimize his actions.
The character sparks debate. “We showed the film to people from different generations and they don’t all have the same reaction. Some will say that José is atrocious and others told us that he did what he might to get her back .All I wanted to avoid was Charlotte getting the wrong role.”
If the situations are sad, the characters always remain funny. A balance between humor and emotion inherited from contemporary American comedy in the style of Judd Apatow (Funny People) and James L. Brooks (the co-creator of The Simpsons) – but also from the films of Patrice Leconte (Tandem) and Agnès Jaoui (Le Goût des others).
Embarrassed
This realistic dimension of the comedy – even if it meant causing a form of embarrassment – surprised the audience at the previews. “The comedy scenes are really funny with colorful secondary characters and then when there is a couple arguing, we don’t include any jokes.”
“The idea was to make a comedy that does not apologize for tipping into emotion, as is often the case with dramatic comedies,” continues the director. “I wanted when the characters were arguing, the viewer would put themselves in the position of the children and not want to see them arguing.”
A feeling of discomfort which is not surprising on his part: following having written La Flamme, but also Jack Mimoun with Malik Benthala, Florent Bernard also frightened cinemas last year with Vermines, which he written with his accomplice Sébastien Vaniček. Their next project? A new version of Evil Dead in Hollywood.
