Alphonse arrives on Prime Video: should you watch?

Creation of Nicolas Bedos played by Jean Dujardin, this study of morals on filiation and the relationship with women inevitably comes up against the cold reality, that of the accusations of sexual assault brought against its director.

Should we talk aboutAlphonse ? Prime Video is today quietly releasing the first 3 episodes (out of 6) of its brand new original French series. A social study around a poor, unhappy guy, who lives again by sleeping, for money, with rich and elderly women. Abandoned by his mother, raised by a libidinous father, and crushed in a passionless marriage, Alphonse will rediscover the desire to exist through his job as a gigolo and the pleasure that he brings daily to his clients.

Jean Dujardin embodies with astonishing force this anti-hero of love, never really charming, never really pathetic, but often moving. A return to the small screen full of cracks, which shows to what extent the actor has evolved, 20 years after his last regular role on television (in A boy a girl). With an assumed, even hammered, transgressive will, Alphonse is a portrait of a complex man, nourished by all the obsessions of Nicolas Bedos : the weight of family heritage, its relationship to the father and filiation, and more specifically its relationship to sexuality.

And this is where the series hits a wall. The legal cases currently pursuing the director behind Alphonse absolutely prevent us from detaching the work from its author. Nicolas Bedos was indicted last June for sexual assault on a woman in a nightclub. In the process, another investigation was opened for rape and sexual assault after three other women filed complaints against him. In these circumstances, how can you take some distance to watch a series like Alphonse, filled with such intimate themes, decoupling it from the accusations that pursue its creator? How can we accept his social picture, implicitly suggesting the malaise of modern man? The fact thatAlphonse Either a good or a bad series ultimately no longer really makes sense and we end up wondering if, from the start, it should have been broadcast.

Prime Video justifies in the newspaper 20 Minutes having decided to release the series, despite everything, because “It is up to justice to establish the facts and we respect the fundamental principle of presumption of innocence.” But the unease is undeniable – in front of and behind the screen – and reinforced by this sneaky release on the platform, without promo or interview. In a different context, Alphonse would have been, without a doubt, one of the streaming events of this end of the year. It will remain as an infinitely embarrassing work until its conclusion on November 2. The trial of Nicolas Bedoswill take place in February 2024.