Four pairs of buttocks appear successively on the screen. The first belongs to Cédric (Guillaume Labbé), a little, well-brushed goatee, creative director of a Frédéric Beigbeder-style advertising agency at the start of “99 francs”, who loses his job in the first minutes of “Super Mâles”, delightfully six-episode comedy available starting this Friday on Netflix. “According to some, you stink of latent misogyny,” his boss tells him.
The second posterior, more harmless, arises when Tom (Manu Payet), a comic book artist who has been depressed since his girlfriend left him, turns off his computer and gets up, just long enough to go crash into the sofa. At the other end of her legs, also bare, are two very pretty unicorn slippers.
The third behind, dressed, is that of Jérémie (Antoine Gouy), a municipal cop on a bicycle who dreams of joining the mounted police (and rediscovering some semblance of a sexual life, after fourteen years of living together and two children). The last little ass works energetically between the legs of a girl who is not his. Besides, it was the last time because Tonio (Vincent Heneine) plans to propose to his regular.
(Very) freely adapted from a series that was a hit in Spain, Noémie Saglio’s new comedy (“Plan coeur”) features a group of lifelong friends, played by an impeccable cast, who are struggling to find their place in the post #MeToo world. Seeing the four of them struggling in their life as a couple, we think about “The Heart of Men”, of which the series could be an update.
In “Super Males”, the screenwriter captures the spirit of the times and sincerely addresses the daily life of forty-somethings who grew up in the world before and attempts to outline the contours of the one after. “I have a lot of tenderness for my characters,” she assures. The series tells the story of how we approach our forties when we were raised with the worst injunctions and suddenly have to switcher in wokism. It’s more difficult for boys than for women because, for us, things are going more or less in the right direction, while they have the impression of having lost out. »
Break the image of the couple who sleep twice a week
Alongside them, the girls also make the big gap between their desires and their lives. Among the real successes of the series, the treatment reserved for the sexuality of the characters and this anthology scene, when Jérémie and Cécile are summoned by the teacher because their 8 year old son came to class with a vibrator.
-“It’s already complicated with the children’s toys, so what if the parents’ toys could stay at home,” the teacher asks the couple who are not having a great time. And she continues: “Ulysses did not want to let go until the battery was discharged. I had to take the entire calculus class with the noise of…”
The parents suppress a fit of laughter. Cécile apologizes, then breaks down: “The bath, the homework, the breaded fish, the soft broccoli that we end up eating in their place, the evening story that we have already told a hundred times (…) and a growing guilt because we no longer want to fuck. »
“I have a lot of trouble with series where couples who have been together for ten years still sleep together with passion. It makes me want to turn off the TV, laughs the screenwriter. Nobody fucks! We are 40 years old, children, a career. When we come home, if we watch a series, it’s the end of the world. Because, already, you have to have one or two nice dinners with friends, otherwise you really have more life. I don’t know anyone who still sleeps passionately with their husband. It’s quickies (quick sex). I’m trying to break this image that a couple that lasts is a couple that has sex at least twice a week. It’s nonsense! »
French adaptation of “Machos Alfa” by Noémie Saglio (2024), with Guillaume Labbé, Manu Payet, Vincent Heneine, Antoine Gouy… (Six episodes of 31 to 40 minutes)
