A widower, Jean-Paul (Jean-Paul Rouve) is wasting away. He struggles to run the restaurant he set up with his wife and drinks to try to forget his grief, his money problems and his conflicting relationships with those close to him, including his son who has ignored him for years. He lives with his father Pierre (Pierre Richard) and his twelve-year-old daughter, Camille, who cope with his acute depression as best they can. Passionate about sailing, he suddenly has a crazy idea to pay off his debts: take part in the Virtual Regatta, the online version of the Vendée Globe which takes place in parallel with the main race. His method makes him unique among the competitors: he will be in a real boat… but without leaving his garden!
This alcoholic and bitter fifty-year-old will have to finish in the top three if he wants to win the tidy sum of money promised to the thousands of competitors. Far from living the adventure as a dilettante, he puts himself in the shoes of a skipper and, for three months, he will experience the competition almost in the conditions of real sailors, isolating himself under the eyes of those around him and those around him. customers of his establishment, with the ban on getting off his sailboat if he does not want to be eliminated. More than once he almost breaks down, or even gives up.
An ecological reflection
Jean-Paul Rouve is fully invested in bringing to life the whirlwind of intimate pain experienced by this broken man. This trip like no other proves above all a way to reconnect with his family exhausted by his bad temper, starting with his eldest son who fled this deleterious atmosphere. He has become a chef that his grandfather will secretly ask to take over the management of the restaurant. With him, Xavier Beauvois adds to the main plot a very current ecological reflection on gastronomy based on strictly local products.
The very kind presence of the Vendée Globe champions, Jean Le Cam and Michel Desjoyeaux validates this strange project of circumnavigating the world in isolation.
Soon to be in his nineties, Pierre Richard finds a nice, more dramatic role than usual, but still with the good nature that belongs to him. He conveys a lot of emotion, evidently in his tender exchanges with his granddaughter, and underground with the looks that his character as a wise grandpa has on his self-destructing son. Happy with the presence of this myth of French cinema, Xavier Beauvois plays a not at all professional cook who interacts in a comical way with him.
A strange, motionless journey in a cramped space, which is also that of the interior of the mind of a man on land who finds meaning in his life thanks to the power of his fascination for the sea.
Dramatic comedy by Xavier Beauvois, with Jean-Paul Rouve, Pierre Richard, Madeleine Beauvois and Sophie Cattani.
