Life for real: a “cartoonish” and “unoriginal” film or Dany Boon's “most successful” comedy?

After the success of Welcome to the Ch'tis, will Dany Boon sign the big comedy of this spring? For his new feature film, the director is changing (a little) register and trying his hand at romantic comedy. Alongside his accomplice, the actor Kad Merad - with whom he had already played in Welcome to the Ch'tis and Supercondriaque - and a Charlotte Gainsbourg against the grain, the director promises to make us laugh with his character of Tridan, a candid native of Club Med, in search of his childhood sweetheart, Violette. Successful bet?

No, judge Éric Neuhoff of the Figaro cinema department. For our journalist, the deliberately simplistic scenario, based on its comedy of situation, does not take the spectator seriously. “Dany Boon (…) plays simpletons. He takes us above all for idiots, ”he writes in his review about the too conventional gags that the director plays in this new feature film. In the end, Life for Real "excites like a projection of devices at a friend's house who continues the jokes at the end of the meal from the aperitif."

The idea of ​​this new feature film is “pretty although naive” for Télérama, which does not taste the multitude of witticisms on Club Med. The appearance of Charlotte Gainsbourg "brings fresh humor and playfulness" to this film, which is too caricatural with her character "lazily written" and "much more silly than naive". An observation shared by Sud Ouest, which deplores the "a little vain" side of the film and its tandem of characters "who skate in a comedy that we would have liked more crazy". "The good jokes and misunderstandings that animate the first third of the film quickly give way to situations lacking madness and real spice", finally deplores the daily.

Life for Real is not a total success for Paris Match, which salutes the director's "sense of human comedy". This new film, of which most of the gags are based on situation comedy, “does not seek to be original, but it is almost so much the better”. The scenes that focus on the trio, however, would benefit from being more developed than others, especially those on secondary characters, which are less accomplished. “Dany Boon will not revolutionize the cinema”, concedes the magazine, which however appreciates the alchemy of the Boon-Merad duo: “Him in the role of Auguste, Kad perfect in white clown”.

Other newspapers hail a great success. Dany Boon would sign "his most successful comedy", according to Les Échos. Despite a plot "which starts slowly by getting tangled in its flashbacks", the film "finds its joyful tempo" and "a nice fall which revisits the myth of Cyrano". This new feature film is also a success for Le Parisien. "Dany Boon always pulls us by the arm to tell us between two smiles and three gags: what if we looked at each other differently, with a little love, for real?", Says the daily. And to salute the performance of Charlotte Gainsbourg who “brings a real charm” to the film.

Dany Boon "succeeds in his foray into the" rom com "(romantic comedy)", abounds L'Obs. The magazine salutes the choice of Charlotte Gainsbourg to embody the title role, which brings "audacity, sweetness and jokes" to the feature film. Same observation on the side of La Croix , which believes that the actress embellishes the universe of Dany Boon. “The actress brings freshness to the film, when the plot threatens to run out of steam”, underlines the newspaper. On one condition: if we see it “as a fable”, then “this luminous comedy charms with its tenderness and sincerity”.