Broadcast every Monday on France 2, “La Jeune fille et la nuit” is none other than the serial adaptation of Guillaume Musso’s bestseller. A thriller with Ioan Gruffudd and Grégory Fitoussi which did not completely wow the critics. Far from there.
It was supposed to be one of the television events for the start of the 2022 school year: the broadcast on France 2 of La Jeune fille et la nuit, the series adapted from the eponymous novel by Guillaume Musso by screenwriter Marston Bloom (Marcella) and director Bill Eagles (Strike Back).
Carried by an international cast including in particular Ioan Gruffudd (Forever, Liar), Grégory Fitoussi (Engrenages), Vahina Giocante (Skam France), Ivanna Sakhno, Rupert Graves (Sherlock), or even Shemss Audat (Un Si Grand Soleil), this thriller in six episodes takes us to the Côte d’Azur and oscillates between two temporalities.
It all began in the winter of 1997, on a prestigious campus frozen in snow. A young girl is swept away by the night, and three friends – Fanny, Thomas and Maxime – find themselves bound by a tragic secret that will cause them to stop talking to each other for twenty-five years. Until the spring of 2022, when Thomas decides to break this silence by going to a reunion of former students of Saint-Exupéry high school.
Without knowing it, he will then endanger the lives of all those around him, starting with that of Maxime. Because during that fateful night that changed everything twenty-five years ago, Thomas and Maxime committed a murder and walled up the body in the high school gymnasium. This same gymnasium that is going to be destroyed in the next few days.
How will the two friends manage to cope with the situation? Everything seems to be linked to Vinca’s disappearance. Disappearance to which Thomas still does not want to resolve.
Necessarily awaited by fans of the writer Guillaume Musso, La Jeune fille et la nuit only gathered 2.8 million viewers in front of its first two episodes last Monday, or 12.9% of the public. Far behind L’Amour is in the meadow on M6.
And the press, which has sometimes not been kind, going so far as to qualify the series as “shipwreck”, was more than divided in its criticisms. Find out what the various French media have thought of it.
What the press think…
According to Les Echos:
“La Jeune fille et la nuit is a breathtaking incursion into the world of Guillaume Musso.” 3.5/5
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According to TV Cable Sat:
“Fans of Guillaume Musso’s prose will be satisfied by the undeniable effectiveness of this adaptation. Novices will be seduced by the staging, sometimes daring and often inspired, taking advantage of the slightest decor to instill an atmosphere and a melancholy that can be transmitted, as well as only through international distribution.” 3.5/5
According to Télé Loisirs:
“Adaptation of the eponymous novel by Guillaume Musso, this tormented thriller skilfully manages the suspense by alternating story of the investigation and flashbacks. (…) On the casting side, special mention to the young and magnetic Ivanna Sakhno who is dying screen in the skin of Vinca, key role in the story.” 3.5/5
According to TV Star:
“A first adaptation of a work by Guillaume Musso which turns out to be quite engaging.” 3/5
According to Le Figaro:
“Many fans of psychological thrillers will find what they are looking for. The landscapes of the Riviera are incomparable. The successive round trips between the two eras are rather mastered. The characters are well drawn. The reconstruction of the 90s, including the musical score, is perfect. The whole thing is stuffed with cliches but when you know how to play with it, after all, why not…” 2.5/5
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According to Télé 7 Jours:
“Postcard decor, cast of choice… For the first adaptation of a novel by Guillaume Musso into a TV series, this international production has done things (too) big. by a lack of authenticity. 2.5/5
According to Le Parisien:
“Apart from the beautiful settings of the Riviera, “The Young Girl and the Night” does not have much to offer. All the psychology of the characters and the different facets of the feeling of guilt, supposed to be at the center of the plot , go by the wayside in favor of twists so frequent that you get lost in them.” 1/5
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According to Humanity:
“It took an international co-production to adapt to the screen the best-selling author’s book, the Young Girl and the Night, which turns to shipwreck. (…) It’s a disaster.” 1/5
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According to Telerama:
“This series is placed more under the patronage of the Inconnus and the Palmashow. It’s not entirely voluntary but it doesn’t matter: we laugh a lot.” 1/5
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