Canal+ is launching “Disorders” tonight, Florence Foresti’s first series, in which the comedian recounts her true-false daily life as an artist and single mother. And who is above all right when she opens up about her anxiety disorder.
What is it about ?
When she is not on stage, Florence Foresti is a woman like the others. Worse. A public figure, she is also a mother in joint custody, a drifting bachelor, an artist in search of inspiration, and a chronic anguish.
Orderscreated and directed by Florence Foresti.
With Florence ForestiBéatrice Facquer, Laëtitia Vercken, Anouk Féral, Clément Bresson, Éric Bougnon…
Every Monday at 9 p.m. on Canal+ (two episodes per week) and available on myCANAL.
8 episodes seen out of 8.
Well worth a look ?
After Eric Judor with Platane and more recently Blanche Gardin who offered The Best Version of Myself on Canal+, it’s Florence Foresti’s turn to embark on the genre of series and autofiction with Désordres, which starts tonight on the encrypted channel.
Above all intended for fans of the comedian who has just returned to the stage with his new show Boys Boys Boys, but not only, this series in eight 30-minute episodes immerses us in the true-false daily life of a single Florence Foresti who has to deal with her life as a mother in shared custody, her complicated search for love, writing of his next one-woman show which is struggling to go beyond the stage of the white page, and the pangs of fame. An entire program.
A big consumer of series fed up with Friends, Seinfeld, or Sex and the City, Florence Foresti explains that she has always wanted to embark on the adventure of a series and that she only had to wait for the right moment, which finally happened in 2016, when she had just closed the chapter of her career dedicated to her show Madame Foresti.
“I’ve always wanted to do an autofiction, because I’m very interested in my person (laughs)”she confided to us recently with humor at a press conference. “No, it’s just that I have a concern for authenticity in my work. You see it on stage, I can’t help but talk about what happens to me when I go on stage. I nourishes me with what I have experienced with my daughter, with men”.
“And for the series, it was therefore difficult to get started because I wanted to stick to my news, to be true. We had to find the right moment, but the desire was always there. It materialized in 2016, after my Madame show, I felt like I had done a lot of things, alone on stage, and I started to say to myself “It would be time to go explore something else, to grow”.
Throughout the series, fans of the actress, who is trying her hand at writing and directing for television for the first time, will be delighted to discover her openly, in an exercise that seems destined to show that, behind the humor and the celebrity, she is a woman (almost) like the others. Who struggles as best she can with her forties and her status as a single mother. And is nothing without his band of friends à la Sex and the City (an obviously assumed reference but from which Désordres luckily gets rid of quite quickly, after a rather hilarious parody sequence).
LIKE A GREAT/ICONOCLAS
As in any autofiction, one inevitably wonders what is true and what is not. And Florence Foresti’s answer is clear: “My ambition has never been to say ‘Look at me, get to know me’. I have absolutely nothing to do with it. I don’t want people to know me. (…) I don’t never tell anything about my personal life. Even if everything looks the same. Using one’s experience to move towards something more universal, that’s what has always guided my work. It’s quite close to what I’m in. real life, but it’s only to make people laugh”.
However, the apartment in which the Florence of the series lives is an apartment in which the actress and humorist really lived. The dog that we see at his side on the screen is the nephew of his real bulldog (!!). And his real housekeeper gives him the answer – and wins the prize for the funniest character in the series.
In short, this game of “It’s not me, but it’s still a little me” ends up somewhat boring after a few episodes. Especially since Florence Foresti and her co-author Pascal Serieis do not go far enough in self-flagellation and struggle to really scratch the image of the comedian adored by the French. That we would have liked to discover more in his failings. Rather than in this mixture of romantic comedy and behind the scenes of the artist’s life which above all makes you smile. Without really taking off and standing out from what already exists in the same genre.
Florence Foresti says it herself: she wanted “tu” his idols. But she unfortunately fails to match the genius of Better Things, Larry and his navel, Louie, or Seinfeld. Rest of the supporting roles endearing and well interpreted (in particular the agent and friend of the heroine Béatrice, camped by Béatrice Facquer). Tasty guest appearances by Baptiste Lecaplain and Audrey Lamy. Suspended moments, like those lip sync musical sequences of which Foresti has the secret. And those rare moments when the comedian really seems to indulge in depth and manages to surprise.
As when she addresses her anxiety disorder and evokes, in small touches, her fear of death and oblivion. Through this character from “La Mort” with whom Florence converses over the episodes. One more disorder, which is added to those of disobedience and shared custody, which is certainly the most interesting thing in Disorders and which is unfortunately only touched upon.
“I wanted to treat panic attacks, anxiety disorder, and drugs to possibly relieve people who suffer from the same disorder. And to relieve people of guilt from treating themselves. There is still too much guilt in falling into depression. And I I said that if I could show them that I too, sometimes, I need antidepressants to manage to live, because life is really not simple, especially at this time, it was not bad “.
Not bad, it is precisely the expression that best characterizes Florence Foresti’s first series. Before a season 2 or another totally different series that will manage to dare and surprise a little more? We can only hope so.