Recently embodied by the formidable Laurent Stocker at the Comédie-Française, played in the cinema by Louis de Funès who had, alas, been a little misguided in this adventure, the emblematic Harpagon, with too well-known replies and caricatured avarice at large lines, is not so easy to interpret. It is the turn of Jérôme Deschamps to try his hand at it in a staging signed by himself. The decor is extremely simple, the costumes imagined by Macha Makeïeff unpretentious, and Deschamps, paunchy, grumbling and with rare hair, camped without ever making too much of a baron dragging his slipper and having no awareness of his ridiculousness. And too bad if you know the movements and reversals of the play by heart, the staging and acting, sober, let us hear better than ever this marvelous text which continues, 400 years after the death of Molière, to provoke furious bursts of laughter.
Paris Opéra Festival, until May 1 at the Sainte-Chapelle. Seat from 40 euros. All the programming on https://www.parisoperafestival.fr/
We dreaded pixie dust and, miraculously, the charm works in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Thieves. New film adaptation of the world of the famous role-playing game of the 1970s, this amusing and clever adventure comedy unfolds, over a little over two hours, a fantasy plot that should appeal to expert role-players as well as neophytes. In a medieval world that is never quite well defined and teeming with magicians, knights and fantastical creatures, we follow the adventures of an unlikely pair of outlaws: Edgin, a devilish smooth-talking lute player (Chris Pine), and Holga, a potato-eating warrior (Michelle Rodriguez). Immobilized in a polar fortress following a theft that went wrong two years earlier, the two accomplices will escape to find the one who trapped them: Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant, coasting and we like that), their former accomplice now reigning over the city of Padwinter with the support of a witch with dark designs. The traitor also regained custody of Kira, Edgin’s only daughter, as well as the object of the failed theft: a “tablet of rebirth” coveted by the fallen bard to resurrect his wife, once murdered by sinister red mages. Edgin and Holga will assemble a team to steal the tablet while saving Kira from Fitzwilliam’s clutches. Without reinventing the wheel, this allegro-paced epic accomplishes its entertainment mission with honors thanks to many twists, endearing antiheroes and a humor that almost borders on Monty Pythonesque verve, among others during a hilarious interrogation scene of the dead in a cemetery. Not necessarily bewitching, but certainly entertaining.
“Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Thieves”, by Jonathan Godlstein and John Francis Daley. In theaters April 12.
In a scorching New York, a recently divorced 40-year-old waits for his ex-wife, who has gone on a yoga retreat, to pick up her children. But the mother doesn’t show up. According to exasperated ex-husband Toby Fleishman, Rachel is career-minded, money-driven, fickle, and unreliable. The absence of this cardboard mother is not surprising in his eyes. One day passes, then another, which turns into a week, then two, then three… The crisis that Toby is going through, who divides his life between the prestigious hospital where he is a hepatologist, the assiduous frequentation of dating sites, the drunken evenings with friends, his bad mood and his heavy parental burden is chronicled by one of his great friends from college, Libby, whom he has just called to the rescue after 12 years of radio silence. She sighs for her lost youth and her shattered dreams: she has given up her job as a journalist and plays the role of a stay-at-home mother in an upscale suburb of New Jersey. A kaleidoscopic series, Anatomy of a Divorce derives its very great intelligence from its play on points of view: long focused on Toby, the golden dad betrayed by his ex, it tilts the spectator’s mind when it seizes the story seen by Rachel, the ex-wife, then subtly embellishes it with the opinion of a Libby who is looking, by observing this devastated couple, for a way to escape her own disaster. Served by an awesome cast, Jesse Eisenberg (The Social Network, Welcome to Zombieland…) eternally youthful, perfect as an outdated neo-single, Claire Danes (Homeland) all nervous, poignant under her working-girl armor, this series catches with its humor end, its intense emotional charge and its ability to make us reconsider, outside of ideologies, the reality of the female condition and the relationship between men and women.
About Disney
In terms of buzz, there are unmistakable signs: an appearance at the Bars en Trans discovery festival which has the whole musical community wriggling in search of new blood, followed by a residency at Les Trans, a signature fissa in a major record company, fans watching every bit of melody posted on the networks, a unanimously rave reviews when his first album was released… All these steps, 23-year-old Zaho de Sagazan, crossed them at lightning speed. Moreover, she baptized her first album La Symphonie des éclairs… Singer author from Saint-Nazaire with light hair, this artist’s daughter who studied management and worked in an nursing home shouts and whispers her serious haunting siren melodies on techno-krautrock compositions inviting you to sway your hips. Her call to dance and her mature poetry capturing the real lover in all its harshness has already thrilled Stromae, who has invited her to open for her concerts.
The Symphony of Lightning (Virgin Records). Currently on tour throughout France, her date at the Trianon on April 18 is already complete. She will be on stage at the Olympia on November 4.