OUTPUT drive – in, It seems that the two months of confinement in France have multiplied in couples to the desires of separation and divorce. So this is the time to go see the new movie directed by Michaël Youn, Divorce Club, which aspires to become the comedy of the summer.
After you have created the surprise by winning the two main awards (Grand Prix and press Award) at Festival du film de comédie de l’alpe d’huez last January, the film was released on march 25, but, coronavirus forces, landed finally in theaters this Tuesday, July 14. A good opportunity to laugh, in this period where everything that lifts the spirits is good to take.
The story begins as Ben (Arnaud Ducret), 40, a real estate agent well in his skin, and still in love with his wife after 5 years of marriage, discovers at a public meeting that it is cheating with her boss. She asked for divorce and this is the poor ex-husband humiliated who sees his life collapse, his friends step away, her prospects worsen.
Until one day, he sees Patrick (François-Xavier Demaison), a former friend, also divorced, but who, unlike him, seem to live rather well and took advantage of his celibacy. Financially easy, Patrick has a beautiful villa and offers it to Ben to create the “Divorce Club”, a colocation VIP for in their forties divorced, men and women, where everyone will be able to enjoy all the delights which were prohibited usually the life of couple…
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This is the great return of Michaël Youn as a director, after the first two movies that had each attracted over a million spectators: Fatal in 2010, criticism and totally out of the middle of the show-biz through the story of a rapper bling-bling named Fatal Bazooka; and Vive la France 2013, history crazy and hectic two shepherds from Taboulistan sent to France to publicize their small country, the inventor of the tabbouleh…
Unlike the other two films, Michaël Youn has not reserved the main role –leaving it to Arnaud Ducret, very present, and who gives heart, joy alongside François-Xavier Demaison– and it only appears in a secondary role, that of a divorced a little coward and moron. It is accompanied by other well-known actors: Audrey Fleurot (in divorced flourished), Caroline Anglade (of which Ben is going to fall in love), Benjamin Biolay (the boss of his ex-wife), Jarry (a psychologist who explained that “the divorce, it is a personal failure”), Frédérique Bel, Claudia Tagbo, Vincent Moscato, Vincent Desagnat, Cartman, etc
With age (46 years), Michaël Youn leaves aside the parody, the humour, slapstick and regressive, the provocation which had made him famous in the time of the memorable broadcasts Morning Live on M6 in the early 2000s and tubes of Fatal Bazooka Fous ta hood or Talk to my hand, for a humour-wise and comedy to a wider audience.
A humour that is neither too old nor too trashy
“It is a real balancing act to make people laugh with a humor that is neither too old fashioned nor too much trash, without ever falling into ill will or malice, while bringing freshness and modernity, all the while being in agreement with oneself and never betray you. Good luck!”, he said.
And even if one speaks of time passing, of loneliness, commitment, forgiveness, letting go, friendship, the Divorce Club is primarily a comedy intended to Michaël Youn has always wanted to: make the public laugh. “This is not a film society, I assume fully its nature as a pure comedy, “popcorn” or “feel good””, he adds.
In part autobiographical
It also specifies, in interviews in recent weeks, that he very much put his own story in this film, a kind of therapy on a large screen. Because, a bit like Ben at the beginning of the film, “I discovered on the cover of a people magazine that my wife was deceiving me. (…) I didn’t know it, I discovered it in the magazine”, he told recently in the show C à vous on France 5. In the monthly First, it even specifies the date: “I discovered it on the cover of Here (…). I was in the process of turning The Bracelets red and I saw on my phone 63 missed calls, 37 messages… I learned it at the same time as everyone else. So the Divorce Club is not autobiographical, but there’s a lot of me in it“.
In couple with Isabelle Funaro
The first shooting of the series of TF1 Bracelets red, having started in 2017, this perhaps explains the rumours of a rupture, which were circulated at the time with his current girlfriend Isabelle Funaro, with whom he is in couple since 2008 and with whom he had two children, a daughter named Seven in 2011 and a boy named Stellar in July 2019.
“I believe deep down that I wanted to get out through the laughter of my pathetic sentimental story personal. It is through the humor that I tried to close this episode intimate”, concludes the actor-director.
Author(s): FranceSoir
