Roll youth: between laughter and tears, Éric Judor excels and surprises (Review)
This first feature film reveals a particularly moving Éric Judor as a surrogate father.
Roll youthreleased in July 2018 in theaters, will return this Friday evening on TMC. First advise you.
Even more than a clever art of the twist, Julien Guetta’s first film handles sensitive and inspired breaks in tone throughout its story. The story of Alex, a car repairman who works in his mother’s garage, begins as a colorful generational comedy about a “adult” forced to spend his days aboard his tow truck. Lively and spirited, the narration draws an amusing character of an immature forty-something. Then, Alex’s destiny shifts to a more melodramatic register when this great egoist unexpectedly finds himself with three abandoned children on his hands. Initially obsessed with his peace of mind, our hero gradually finds himself cornered and pushed into his entrenchments.
More and more poignant
As the protagonist evolves before our eyes, the film in turn enters an increasingly social and poignant cinematographic terrain. Always rhythmic and bright (the daytime photography constantly keeps the story in a summer atmosphere), the project nevertheless changes in scope by treating the themes of family and filiation in a much more direct way than expected. And this adventure ends up, thanks to its remarkable direction of actors, by twisting the stomach and tightening the heart. Within this miraculously found balance between laughter and tears, Éric Judor excels and surprises. Alex’s quest seems in fact to gradually become that of the actor, capable here of assuming the drama and expressing his sentimentality in proportions hitherto unseen.
Eric Judor: “I want to show something other than pure comedy”
