Pas une critique!

Vu en avant-première en salle.

In the form of a tale of rise and fall of a young soul going to the capital only to lose his dream and be corrupted, this Balzac adaptation looks at journalism and critiques, the world of appearances surrounding the more or less high society of the Restauration and the emerging ways that would define the later world, in such a pessimistic and ironic way it's actually pretty fun. Some people will love to consider it as even more relevant today, dropping a few snarky comments like the characters. Something the director probably chose: an underlined piece of narration tells how "someday, a banker will probably rule the country" (among other winks).

But the sumptuous look of the recreation, the big names, the book lines narrated in the background and all that makes those vain prestige films become fast an empty reason for our appreciation. The most apparent point is also a "classic" of those literature movies: despite focusing on a single segment of the novels (wich is a nice choice), it feels both long and too fast (that impression enhanced by the style of many scenes and the type of story), lining up one event after the other until the ineluctable end. But the direction makes up for that: it is, every now and then, what we could call bombastic or stylish (as the fiction tells: it all depends on who will pay the most for a text).

As expected in such a production, recognizable faces are waltzing around the promising Benjamin Voisin (who seems to raise in prominence lately), including those of Cécile de France (I'm still wondering what people see in her), an exuberant Depardieu, the impeccable Dolan (discarding his accent as necessary but giving me a weird impression) and a Vincent Lacoste that might be going too far (although it stays in tone with the film) between the bits where he actually seems to play (finally?).
I wasn't expecting to see Stévenin.

Score : 7/10
Plaisir: 4/5
I came for Voisin and got a bit more than that... because I have never read the book(s). (We were discouraged to read that Balzac in school.)

PS: "canard", ça sonne tout de même mieux que "ake news".