Toy Story 5, Jim Queen, Backrooms: what’s new at the cinema this week
What to see in theaters
THE EVENT
TOY STORY 5 ★★★★☆
By Andrew Stanton and McKenna Harris
The essentials
With Andrew Stanton, the historical screenwriter of the saga, at the helm, Toy Story is once again touched by grace. We no longer believed it!
We know that since Coco (2017) Pixar has had difficulty making a profit with its original films. So we were wondering with this Toy Story 5 which makes it Pixar’s longest saga record if Woody and his gang still had something fresh to offer us. After Toy Story 4, a big hit in theaters but quite forgettable, and especially the spin-off on Buzz Lightyear, completely off topic, we had some concerns… That was without counting on the big return of veteran Andrew Stanton. The historic screenwriter of the series is directing his first Toy Story and his first Pixar since Finding Dory (2016), with Kenna Harris, a small hand at the studio propelled as co-pilot of this $200 million film. A heterogeneous duo who manage to breathe new life into the story, shaking up the dynamics and hierarchy between the characters as necessary to finally make Jessie the real heroine of the film, with one of the most beautiful moments of emotion in the saga. A success all the more dazzling as we no longer hoped for it.
Edward Orozco
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PREMIERE LIKED A LOT
JIM QUEEN ★★★★☆
By Marco N’Guyen and Nicolas Athane
Jim, gay icon and glory of Parisian gyms, contracts Heterosis and loses everything: his abs, his aura, his followers. Helped by Lucien, a young gay who has not yet come out, Jim sets off in search of the antidote. Bobbypills (the production company to which we owe the animated series Les Kassos) is moving on to a feature film but does not deny its trashy and satirical style. And the film never gets caught up in its activist specifications. Firstly because the writing and direction favor the impact and crudeness of gags that Bill Plympton would not have denied. But above all because there is emotion. The heart of the film is as much Jim’s dirty jokes as the journey of Lucien, a young gay man still in hiding, who learns to take responsibility by accompanying his fallen idol. Morality: kitsch and dirty laughter can still be weapons of liberation.
Gaël Golhen
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THE ILLUSION OF YAKUSHIMA ★★★★☆
By Naomi Kawase
Death does not exist. This is the conclusion that Corry (Vicky Krieps) could reach at the end of Yakushima’s Illusion: transferred from Paris to Japan to a center where children await a transplant, she discovers another culture, another relationship to life. His father, his new friend, a child playing ball, all can disappear with a snap of the fingers as if defying death, reappearing here or there with the help of a connection. Naomi Kawase thus brings into dialogue the different temporalities of the life of a modern woman, lost on the other side of the world, in perpetual reconstruction. Of great sensory beauty, the film brings Corry’s intimate life into dialogue with his professional journey (the Japanese reluctance to donate organs), but also the luxurious surrounding nature. A storm threatens in the distance. Is it physical, mental, metaphorical? In any case, it is proof that life goes on.
Nicholas Moreno
FIRST TO LIKE
BACKROOMS ★★★★☆
By Kane Parsons
Kane Parsons became known for his Youtube videos adapting a mythology born on the Internet, around backrooms, places made up of huge empty office spaces, located outside of our reality, in which we find ourselves when we accidentally slip from our world to theirs. Hollywood asked him to develop his universe in this film where a furniture salesman at the end of his rope (Chiwetel Ejiofor) discovers and gets lost in these backrooms, before his shrink (Renate Reinsve) goes looking for him…There is the Shining in these constructions where each intersection of corridors seems to hide the worst. Parsons bases a large part of his anxiety-provoking mechanics on this disturbing atmosphere, but the atmosphere is so strong that it devours everything and the trajectories of the characters seem a little bland in comparison. These dross betray the lack of experience of the young director, who we imagine to have been a little restrained. But the immense success of Backrooms in the United States will inevitably give rise to sequels where he will have complete freedom to shape the ultimate nightmare.
François Leger
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THE GIACCOMO ★★★☆☆
By Baptiste Drapeau
We diagnosed in the first pages the fatigue of the mockumentary genre, overwhelmed by reality – Charli XCX and others would no longer be able to make fun of a world which already parodies everything on its own. But now Baptiste Drapeau and Xavier Lacaille are stepping into the breach. The Giaccomo, their influencer from Amiens on his way to Dubai, advances in a system where nothing is stable: Tibo InShape, Castaldi, Berdah, Cymes play their own role, without us knowing if they are fools, accomplices or both. The true, the false, the mockery, the authentic emotion – everything slips. Certain scenes leave you hanging between the burst of laughter and the tightness of your throat, without you really being able to decide. But in the middle of this artistic vagueness, only one certainty: Xavier Lacaille is a genius, French heir to Sellers and Baron Cohen. With or without a hairpiece, he does not imitate the influencer, he elevates him to the rank of a Dostoyevskian idiot. Sweet, irritating, crazy, annoying, he makes him a Myshkine 2.0, with indefensible candour.
Gaël Golhen
ULYSSES ★★★☆☆
By Laetitia Masson
Inspired by Laetitia Masson’s own life and the relationship with her child (Alphonse Roberts who plays, remarkably, the title role), Ulysse tells the story of the fight of a mother moving heaven and earth so that her son, suffering from a genetic syndrome, can have a “normal” life. The film turns out to be moving without ever forcing emotion. Thanks to the irresistible Elodie Bouchez in the role of the courageous mother of course. But also to the filmmaker’s ability to transcend her own story to tell a more universal story but anchored in this reality that she knows only too well. And it is this anchor that allows her to reconnect with what was the strength of En avoir (or pas), the feature film which revealed her in the heart of the 90s.
Thierry Cheze
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SHANA ★★★☆☆
By Lila Pinell
Shana is the first solo feature from Lila Pinell, whose Kiss & cry (2017) we loved, co-signed with Chloé Mahieu, an atypical teen movie which captured with rare truth the transition to adulthood of a young figure skater. She features a thunderous female character who challenges clichés. This Shana is coping as best she can with the struggles of everyday life, mixing major financial worries and a toxic relationship with her boyfriend who has just been released from prison. Shana works according to the same principle as the recent Marty Supreme: any problem solved instantly triggers dozens of other breaches that are increasingly impossible to patch. There is rhythm and energy to spare in Shana, that of the irresistible Eva Huault who masterfully plays the main role. But Lila Pinell also knows how to set things down, creating more intimate, more composed and more poignant moments which give depth to this whirlwind but remarkably controlled comedy.
Thierry Cheze
BECOME AWESOME ★★★☆☆
By Léo Grandperret
Mathias is a Spanish teacher but above all a father ready to do anything to stay as close as possible to his daughter even though he has just obtained his transfer to her college, not without difficulty. Including pretending to be a German teacher, of whom he doesn’t speak a word, and even organizing a school trip across the Rhine to save his class which is due to close due to a lack of motivated students to learn Goethe’s language. A trip by a group of students abroad based on an original lie and tipping into nonsense, does that remind you of anything? This configuration was already at work in the recent – and excellent – Bis repetita by Emilie Noblet. This first feature film by Léo Grandperret does not possess the scriptwriting virtuosity but relies on three major assets. Manu Payet, irresistible in the central role, Marie-Julie Baup and Melha Bedia who play the other adult companions on this chaotic journey. Three comedy virtuosos with different styles that Grandperret knows how to remarkably combine to create an irresistible trio, the basis of the mischievous charm that emanates from this moving comedy.
Thierry Cheze
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FIRST TO MODERATELY LIKED
THE WHALE AND THE MUSICIAN ★★☆☆☆
By Valentin Paoli
After discovering that his music seems to mysteriously attract cetaceans, Rone (to whom we owe in particular the soundtracks of the Olympiads, the Mohican or the series D’argent et de sang) decides to find out for sure. And then sets off into the open sea on a boat to try to establish a conversation with a whale. This documentary recounts this expedition, which at first glance is intriguing and nourished by Rone’s endearing personality. But is all this enough to make a film, beyond the beauty of the images and musical creations of this major figure in electro? Not completely in any case over a duration of almost 90 minutes where Valentin Paoli often draws the line. Particularly because of the difficulty in making this individual adventure a more universal story, due to failure to delve into certain fascinating subjects that were nevertheless addressed, such as the impact of this search for dialogue and the fact of broadcasting music underwater on the well-being and health of the cetaceans concerned.
Thierry Cheze
And also
The Beautiful Days, by Michaël Journolleau
Our fragile victories, by Mustafa Ozgun
Hair, Paper, Water… by Nicolas Graux and Trương Minh Quý
The covers
The Wing or the Thigh, by Claude Zidi
Boogie Nights, by Paul Thomas Anderson
Battleship Potemkin, by Sergei Eisenstein and Grigoriv Aleksandrov
