Just like Beetlejuice Beetlejuiceit is with a schoolboy spirit that we must make this return to the Stone Age, concocted by Jul and Jeau-Paul Guigue and related by single-celled organisms with the voices of Julie Gayet and François Hollande.
At this absolutely not pivotal moment for humanity, the Dotcom family is divided between supporters of Evolution and conservatives for whom caves already offer all the comfort they desire. But everything changes when, after consuming hallucinogenic products, the father, Blog, and his daughter, Web, find themselves in the 21st century, as real humans, in an Ikea store. A nightmare from which they only escape with difficulty, to find their animated world populated by mammoths. Their journey through time, no one wants to believe it. Until Blog brings out the ultimate proof: a Swedish wrench, in an unknown metal. Very quickly, the object attracts the attention of bankers and becomes the object of a cult giving birth to multiple religions.
The satire of all our faults via prehistoric beings who are not very evolved and who look terribly like us is not the only pleasure of this animated film full of anachronisms. Trying to recognize the voices of the dubbing is also part of the fun. Alex Vizorek, for example, brings all his derision to a student of Sciences-Peaux or to a National-Darwinist with muscular methods. If you listen carefully, you can also recognize Guillaume Gallienne as a shaman with a taste for dubious plants, Bruno Solo as a mocking lizard, Stéphane Bern as an exhibition curator, Léa Salamé and…. Léa Salamandre, Augustin Trapenard as a school principal, Frédéric Beigbeder as a toxic bonobo or Amélie Nothomb as Diane de Brassempouy. They all speak with their mouths askew, in the manner of the Simpsons, of whom they seem to be distant cousins.
It is impossible not to recognize contemporary political, philosophical, religious and cultural movements in this big delirium intended mainly for teenagers and young adults wanting to have fun in groups at the cinema. It does not always fly very high, but the whole manages to put you in a good mood.
The Dog’s Trial: A Magnificent Theme for a Cartoon Comedy
If a César had to be awarded to the most beautiful failure of a golden subject, Laetitia Dosch would undoubtedly be nominated for her Trial of the Dog. The basic idea is nevertheless worth the detour. A homeless man (François Damiens) finds himself before the judge and risks a heavy fine, or even the euthanasia of his dog which bit a passerby. His lawyer (Laetitia Dosch), specialized in lost causes, manages to demonstrate that the dog cannot be considered as an object, therefore that its master cannot be condemned. As a result, it is the dog who finds himself accused in court.
What a shame that such a catchy and interesting theme is massacred by the caricatured interpretation of the main actors. The contrast between the subtlety of the legal fight and their acting totally undermines this comedy to the point of making it irritating. A huge waste.
Ezra: A Child’s Autism as Seen by His Parents
Unlike The Trial of the Dog, this is a film of great sensitivity and whose subtlety could make more than one moviegoer crack. However, the story can be summed up in very little: in total disagreement with his ex-wife, a man kidnaps his very restless autistic son who has just been kicked out of school to go on a trip to the American heartland, as much to learn to know himself better as to make him discover real life.
It is touching, never Manichean, extremely revealing of the difficulty encountered by parents of autistic children and the different responses they want to provide to the problems encountered.
To top it all off, the young William Fitzgerald, who is truly autistic, delivers a dazzling performance and puts himself on the same level as Rosie Byrne, Bobby Cannavale, Robert De Niro (who we haven’t seen in such a beautiful performance for a while) or Whoopi Goldberg. You’d better get your tissues ready, but this Ezra does a world of good to the soul and the heart.