Nicolas Bedos has had an interesting career so far. Started off pretty good with his feature length directorial debut (Monsieur et madame Adelman) and went off to direct what will undoubtedly be his best film (La Belle Epoque). Watching these two movies back-to-back, it was clear that he had the narrative chops to make compelling narratives about love, desire and memory. And his presentation was admirable for someone who was mostly known for his involvment in TV.
But since then, he has massively fallen off. Not only directing the absolute worst iteration of the OSS 117 trilogy, returning to his roots with an absolute borefest (Mascarade) and occasionally being accused of sexual harrassment. Alphonse is the result of taking out all the substance from his previous work and pretending it's emotional high art.
None of my complaints are with the explicit content of the show. In fact, I think they're the better part of the entire show but it's because they're such in poor taste and terribly communicated. Louis' arc as a closeted homosexual was so incredibly funny, I couldn't take it seriously. Jean Dujardin's character deciding right away to be an escort was stupid, but I guess it's all right because the established universe of the show is filled to the brim with the dumbest characters ever written in a show.
At best, the "emotional" parts of the show are an absolute blast to laugh at. But unfortunately, these moments don't take a high portion of the runtime, and the rest of them are not only a slog but also unearned and tasteless. The most offending example for me would be the entirety of episode 4, where not only I had to suffer through this plain sex scene with Alphonse, Margot and an escort. None of the emotions in this scene are properly established and the dynamics between these characters as well as Margot's banker are not interesting nor playful. After that we get a flashback of Adèle's character, where she falls in love with a teacher and publicly frames him for indecent behavior because he (rightfully) refused her advances. I love dissecting unlikable characters but why does the show continue to build Adele as a broken likeable person. Special mention to Alphonse fingering her and she climaxes before her eventual death. That was the funniest scene I've seen all year.
The only other notable moment from the show would be the final scene of the season's finale, but that'd be because (as of the time I'm writing this) the second season hasn't been announced. I'd be happy if that cliffhanger turned out to be a wasteful hanger.
The acting sucks, not a single believable performance, Louka Meliava's was easily the worst as he also portrayed what I thought was the worst character of the bunch. Terrible writing, the tone is all over the place and it's in service of a flavorless story. Common complaint with the music in Nicolas Bedos' movies, the music in this show is very derivative, and the opening feels like the composer used Succession's opening theme as temp music. Although the lighting is good, there's nothing exceptional about the cinematography.
What else can I say? This show is bad. Watch it. Or don't, I don't really care.
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