Tonight on TV: with 2 million admissions, this comedy was a hit in theaters… but not its sequel!

After having studied the pangs of friendship in Barbecue, the director Eric Lavaine is interested in family conflicts, in particular between parents and children. It was while watching a television report on the “boomerang generation” that he had the idea for Back to my mother’s house.

Unlike the “Tanguy generation” – an expression taken from the cult film of the same name by Étienne Chatiliez -, designating adults who stay with their parents until old age, the “boomerang generation” refers to adults forced to return with their parents, usually because of job loss.

In addition to this social phenomenon, Eric Lavaine is also inspired by a friend of his to imagine the character of Stéphanie, 40, forced to return to live with her mother Jacqueline. Alongside his faithful collaborator, the screenwriter Héctor Cabello Reyes, he imagines the comical situations, the unspoken and other settling of scores caused by this forced cohabitation.

Led by the Josiane Balasko-Alexandra Lamy duo, Retour chez ma mère tackles a contemporary subject with great accuracy and humour. This is undoubtedly the reason for its success in theaters: released in 2016, the film attracted 2.2 million spectators in France.

Logically, the director is asked to create a sequel. Five years later, the latter finds his merry band for Un tour chez ma fille. This time, it is the mother who arrives at Carole, her eldest daughter, played by Mathilde Seigner, who thus has the opportunity to further develop her character.

However, this sequel did not achieve the expected success. For its first week of operation, A visit to my daughter has 146,389 entries, a score significantly lower than its predecessor (643,863 entries). After four weeks in theaters, the feature film only totals 376,808 admissions.

Return to my mother by Eric Lavaine with Alexandra Lamy, Josiane Balasko, Mathilde Seigner…

Tonight on TF1 at 9:10 p.m.