Retirement home 2 opens the L’Alpe d’Huez festival with fanfare

The old people are back. With its overheated guests (Jean Reno! Amanda Lear! Chantal Ladesou!) and its good feelings, the new comedy with Kev Adams launches the laughter festival.

Were you in the street during the demonstrations against pension reform? Did you have a bad experience with the Orpéa scandal? Do you belong to the family of Catherine Vautrin (new minister for “old age”)? So come and pound the pavement with the old guys Kev Adams !

Like the first part, Retirement Home 2 cheerfully surfs the news, plays the big feelings card and offers the vermilion card actors a friendly playground. But this time, there’s something better. Claude Zidi Jr’s film opened this evening on Alpe d’Huez festival. Well, we didn’t plan to meet Chantal Ladesou or Amanda Lear on the butt lifts; Firmine Richard (very fit car 1 of the festival train) should not go down the Sarenne, and we can always dream of seeing Enrico Macias with his Oud perched on a chairlift… But the expandable of French comedy ensured the launch of this new edition and they put on a show during the opening ceremony. However, for the expert journalist, a mystery remains: why, when we are promised an edition full of first films, entirely focused on the future and new generations, the Alpe d’Huez team has Did she decide to start the week with the old world? I’m asking the question !

In the first film, Kev Adams played Milann, an arrogant young guy who hates old people and is forced to work in a nursing home as part of his TIG. Quickly converted into a good Samaritan, he restored dignity to the residents and even imagined a culture shock by confronting the decrepit residents and turbulent orphans. A pretext to offer its actors something to have fun and its spectators a demo of good feelings.

When MDR2 begins we discover that the retirement home is threatened with closure. Kev, faithful to the post, decides to embed the residents in another nursing home in the south of France. There, he encounters two problems: firstly the delicate mix between his team of old hands and the new veterans (Chantal Ladesou, Jean Réno, Enrico Macias, Amanda Lear, Michel Jonasz….). Then – and above all – the confrontation with the director of a nursing home company more interested in money and profits than in the well-being of its residents (the Orpéa scandal really happened there).

MDR 2 uses the same strings as the first. And first of all, the regressive jokes: its cast destroys itself with Nerf and insults each other (Chantal Ladesou belches her insanities with a truly astonishing thug air). In this register, it is Jean Reno who takes best advantage of the situation. An old grunt on duty, a mytho who rides on his own glory, he is imperial. Arrival in slow motion, memories scattered on the seafront with his glassy gaze: in mocking sub-Bruce Willis mode, he is frankly amusing. If the retirement home film is a genre that demographics promise a bright future, Kev and Claude Zidi Jr have also understood one essential thing. The old people have a decisive advantage over the young people: they no longer take themselves seriously, they have nothing to lose. And while we keep them company, the elderly take on the air of a pleasure party.

Kev and his filmmaker once again deliver life lessons, trying to give meaning to the comedy, even a moral. Like in the first part. But MDR 2 adds two particularities to this cocktail: firstly an ending in the form of a scam at the Ocean’s eleven morning of Queen’s game which we will not reveal to leave you a complete surprise. The scam mic-mac is not the best choice, the blasting is a little short, but we don’t really care. Above all, there is this impression that Kev is playing Ringmaster here. He organizes, lights the fuse, indulges in a few jokes (very good imitation of Christophe Maé), but first thinks collectively. He passes the dishes, watches the actors enjoying themselves, gets a kick out of seeing his old partners go crazy.

In the Sports Palace this evening, the room was hilarious. Mission accomplished for Kev Adams and for the festival.

Tomorrow, it’s time for young people.