Love is overrated on Canal Plus: a supercharged romantic comedy (review)

The Hakim Jemili-Laura Felpin duo sparks in a first film by Mourad Winter who is not afraid of anything, and especially not of emotion or immodest arrogance.

Noticed at the Alpe d’Huez Festival, where it received a special mention from the jury, L’Amour c’est surcoté is broadcast this Tuesday evening on Canal Plus (and visible in streaming on MyCanal). The opportunity to see or rewatch this refreshing romantic comedy, which attracted nearly half a million spectators during its theatrical release. We will soon find the trio Mourad Winter, Laura Felpin and Hakim Jemili (plus Benjamin Tranié) in The Bastards, coming to Prime Video.

What is a good romantic comedy? The question has become thorny since #MeToo reshuffled all the cards, forcing the genre to modernize and update its point(s) of view, otherwise it would become outdated. All the same, there remains an almost constant: the duo of lovers in the making, who will sniff each other, hate each other, tame each other and finally love each other. A formula that can only really work through a filmmaker’s eye, a particular tone that seeks to move the lines. Which is precisely what L’Amour c’est surcoté achieves, the first feature film by Mourad Winter who here adapts his own eponymous novel, a great bookstore success in the marrade department.

A journey of a nice loser, Anis (Hakim Jemili, immediately endearing), a lousy flirt, paralyzed by his fear of commitment and the constant injunctions to coitus from his friends. However, he falls head over heels for Madeleine (Laura Felpin, hilariously seductive), sunny and solid, a cloakroom attendant at a club where Anis was trying to forget the death of his best friend, which occurred three years previously. What he doesn’t yet know is that the young woman will force him to confront this emotional blockage that secretly governs his life.

Left with the Special Mention from the jury at the Alpe d’Huez Festival (we would have hoped for a slightly higher prize), L’Amour c’est surcoté is a romantic comedy like we rarely see, on the lookout for emotion (the trauma of Anis, a soul to be repaired, serves as a common thread) but multiplying the spicy valves at an unbelievable pace. There is a surgical precision in the dialogue and an eye, a real one, that of the cinematographer André Chemetoff (Dog Pound, The World Is Yours, Omar the Strawberry…), which gives the film the air of an urban epic.

This formal ambition runs through a story populated by priceless supporting roles (Benjamin Tranié, inexhaustible friend on racist jokes; François Damiens as an overprotective father-in-law…), around whom reign Jemili and Felpin, an obvious cinema couple. What is a good romantic comedy? Surely a film where we cry (a little), we laugh (a lot) and we love (crazy).

Of Mourad Winter With Hakim Jemili, Laura Felpin, Benjamin Tranié… Duration 1 hour 38 minutes.