Adieu les cons
Albert Dupontel, France, 2021o
When Suze, a hairdresser in her mid-forties, learns that her life could soon end, she sets out to find the child she gave birth to at the age of 15 and had to give up for adoption. In the process, she meets the brilliant programmer JB, who, at fifty, was supposed to have been disposed of and who, in his indignation, has so unsuccessfully killed himself that his suicide attempt is interpreted as a rampage. The strange team is completed by the blind archivist Monsieur Blin, who contributes a mixture of genuine flashes of genius and abstruse inspirations to the research.
Winner of all the major Césars in France, this burlesque bursts with ideas and yet, went virtually unnoticed by critics and audiences in German-speaking Switzerland. A case of Allemanic arrogance? Maybe just caution: If the title of a French comedy already tells about "morons" , its comedic level will not be any better ... Far from it! In his seventh screenplay and directorial work, actor Albert Dupontel shows that French humorists can take different directions when they take greats like the Python legends Terry Giliams and Terry Jones, the subtly surreal décor and colors of a Trauner or Tati, the intellectual slapstick from Keaton to Beckett or the tricks of Peter Sellers as their model. That such disparate influences come together to form a cohesive and very funny universe has to do with the perfect teamwork of Dupontel, his crew, and his cast, all of whom must have had the twisted logic of an insane asylum under good direction in mind. What's it all about? Oh yes, about a terminally ill hairdresser who had to give away a baby when she was a teenager and wants to find the offspring three decades later, with the help of a world-weary programmer and a blind archivist who helf her with a mixture of flashes of inspiration and crackpot ideas. In other words, never mind, just sit down and surrender to this comic, sentimental, candy-colored endgame.
Andreas FurlerDans le paysage bien balisé des comédies françaises, Dupontel détonne car son rythme trépidant emprunte au "slapstick" du cinéma muet et ses enchaînements de situation lorgnent plus vers le nonsense des Monty Python que vers les quiproquos vaudevillesques des films comiques franchouillards. On ne va pas s’en plaindre. Virginie Efira semble parfaitement à l’aise dans son univers, et le duo Suze/JB fonctionne bien à l’écran. Cette "tragédie burlesque" (comme la définit le cinéaste), menée tambour battant, n’ennuie jamais et surprend souvent. Deux qualités précieuses.
Hugues DayezFilm le plus émouvant de son auteur, où le punk cartoon se marie étonnamment bien avec des émotions aiguës, dont la justesse impressionne, Adieu les cons ne laisse pas indemne.
Simon RiauxGalleryo
