Us, the Leroys on TF1: very funny but above all moving (review)

José Garcia and Charlotte Gainsbourg attempt a last-ditch road trip to save their relationship. Their most beautiful score in a long time.

Ghent Prize of the Alpe d’Huez Festival in 2024, and a nice little success at the cinema (more than half a million spectators), Nous, les Leroy is broadcast for the first time unencrypted, this Sunday evening on TF1. Première recommends the first feature film as director of the talented and versatile Florent Bernard, who will be found this year in the screenplay for Evil Dead Burn by Sébastien Vaniček

Sandrine Leroy wants a divorce. It’s like that, nothing to do, her two children are grown up and nothing is holding her back in a marriage whose routine and verbal violence are suffocating her. But Christophe, her car rental husband who is far too absent, tries everything to save his relationship: a last weekend for four on the roads of the past and the key places of their family history. Enough to reignite the flame?

From this true/false suspense, We, the Leroys does the reverse anatomy of a love story, alternately placing itself from the point of view of the adults and the kids (Lily Aubry and Hadrien Heaulmé, always accurate). It’s about memories that never live up to their expectations (the places revisited by the Leroys have lost their former power of fascination), thwarted encounters (a perfectly clumsy restaurant owner or a condescending caricaturist) and a devouring nostalgia.

Grand Prix at the Alpe d’Huez festival, a sincerely charming first film but which sometimes seeks its rhythm, and where Florent Bernardnotably co-writer of Vermines ou du Flambeauestablishes himself as heir to Patrice Leconte of Tandem.

In front of his camera, industrial zones or small towns are suddenly charged with an unsuspected flamboyance and humanity. A tragicomic road trip looking for humor in pathos, and vice versa. The second part, moving because without concession, offers José Garcia and Charlotte Gainsbourg their most beautiful score in a long time.

Of Florent Bernard With José Garcia, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lily Aubry… Duration 1h43.